The third man
by Astarte19
Summary: After the battle at Hogwarts Helen, a former teacher, had lost a greater part of her magical power and is now looking for a new start and a calmer place to live in. She leaves England in hope to find some peace, possibly happiness, love elsewhere. She heads for Sunnydale and meets a handsome british librarian fighting against a different kind of dark forces...
1. Chapter 1: Welcome to Sunnydale

Another Brit in Sunnydale

_AN: I do not own anything, all characters belong to Joss Whedon (BTVS) or J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter), with the exception of the OC Helen. _

"But I was assigned to teach history and music, not arts, sir, I am not qualified to do so". Helen McGregor was sitting in the principal's office at Sunnydale High, it was in the middle of October, she had just arrived to take a position of a teacher here, having left London and all of her acquaintance behind.

"Yes, well, there probably was some kind of a mistake, a.. a misunderstanding, but I am sure you can manage. It's not like you'd be teaching chemistry or physics. Besides music is arts too, and we are lacking arts-teacher since the last one, Ms. Gordon... disappeared." Principal Flutie murmured to himself, as if still in disbelief.

"But I explained to you" Helen was about to protest further, but Flutie silenced her with a raised hand. Then he stood up.

"I am sorry, Ms. McGregor, I have another appointment right now and I don't have time for you, there's a lot going on here at present, I suggest you don't waste your time. Borrow a book from the library or something, you'll do just fine. Your resumées are very promising, I have all the faith that you will teach arts as good as Ms. Gordon in no time." He gave her his hand to shake and then showed her the way out of his office. There was no point in arguing with him any longer.

In the hall she took a look on her class timetable only to see that she was already 10 minutes late for her first history class with the sophomors.

She entered the classroom, said a short and shy "Hello" and put her things on the desk, then took a look of her first Sunnydale class. She smiled. "My name is Helen McGregor and I'll be teaching you history this year. Since I am already late for this lesson – which won't become a habit I can assure you – I'd suggest we make the rest of it an introduction round..."

The class went well after all, she had about 20 students, whose names she wouldn't remember so soon, but who knows. There was a George, the small shy boy, who wouldn't stop playing with his pencil, a Nathalie, who seemed to be a school-hottie, an Alexander Harris, a dark haired bright looking Willow, what a nice name... She tried to remember some more as she walked through the halls searching for the library and hoping to find there some basic books on history of arts.

There it was. The swing door with the unmistakeable letters "Library" above it. She entered, looking towards the desk on the right, wondering whether there was someone in here. It looked empty. Like always when she was nervous her hand wandered to the scarf, wrapped around her neck.

She cleared her throat and said quietly. "Hello? Is ... anybody here?"

There was a loud bang, several objects must have fell to the floor, which made her jump and turn left to the source of the noise. There in a ... cage, what the hell? she thought... stood a tall man in a tweed suit holding some rather odd pieces in his hand, more of which he obviously let fall in the surprise of her appearance. She stared at those ... were those swords? ... a crossbow? ...

"What ... may I help you?" He recovered very quickly and posted himself right in front of her. His voice was calm with a slight touch of irritation though.

"... yess, I .. was ... looking for a couple of books on history of arts and was hoping to find them here, since... this... is the... school library."

He didn't say anything but was looking at her as if he wouldn't entirely understand, his forehead wrinkled a little.

Helen waited. "Oh, I'm sorry, I am Helen McGregor, a new teacher."

"Oh," his expression lightened up. Though he was aware of the fact, that this was a public or a school library, he often tended to forget that, it happened seldom enough if ever at all, that a student or anyone for that matter got astray here, he wasn't used to see other people then the scoobies in the library, least of all strangers. Englishwomen... he realised as he caught her voice again:

"I am supposed to teach arts and wanted to have a look on some basics." The man was still looking puzzled so she went forth. "This probably sounds a little odd, the truth is I was told before I accepted the job that I will be teaching history and music, which are my actual subjects, but as I arrived this morning, the principal was as kind as to announce that it is arts instead. And history that is." Again the wrinkling forehead. "You are the librarian then?"

"Oh, where are my manners, I mean, yes. Mr. Giles."

She offered him the hand with a smiling "Pleasure."

"So what ... are you looking for some concrete works?"

"Eh, yes, I thought I'd start with Jeremy Wendell's Introduction and Hartmann's History of Arts. I recall those should be a good start."

He walked slowly towards his desk and cleaned his glasses. "Yes, good choice. And we have both here. But I would strongly recommend you the monography by Engelbert. It's a wonderful introduction, not too detailed but very well written."

She followed him. "I've heard of it, but since he is like 50 years old I was hoping the other ones would have reflected upon the „old masters"..."

"Yes, that is right, but the work is by no means obsolete though. In fact Wendell draws a great deal of his explanations on Engelbert. Those are by the way the best part of his book, saddly."

"Why - thank you for the tip, where can I find it all?"

Giles showed her the plan of the small library and explained where the few books on arts were. Those few open for school public that is.

She had no trouble finding the three requested works. "May I borrow them over night or is this a reference library only?"

"Of course you can borrow them all as long as you need, as a teacher." He said with a slightest touch of sarcasm and smiled at her while making some notes about the outgoing books.

"Thank you, I'll have them back tomorrow." She gave him a smile back, took the back and turned around only to run into Willow, Xander and Buffy on her leave. She smiled confused at them too, said "hello" and finally left, having Giles watching her back.

"Who was that?" Buffy asked with an annoyed undertone. Like Giles she had begun to consider the library as some kind of a second home where only Giles, Willow, Xander and her spent time, like a common room for them where they would plan, discuss, doing research on monsters and demons, where none else was allowed to enter and everyone who did was regarded with the utmost suspicion.

Willow started to chatter happily: "That's Ms McGregor, our new history teacher!"

"We have a new history teacher? What happened to Mr. Watts?"

"No, she's our, Xander's and mine, new teacher. And she's quite cool. And also very british." She gave Giles a meaningful look, as if she would discover some kind of conspiracy of the English being here, but wanted to indicate that their secret was safe with her. Giles looked confused.

„Yeah, seemed like A-Lot-Of-Essays-To-Write-Type to me though" argued Xander. „But I liked the tardiness of her. Would be nice if she could put those ten minutes at the End of the lesson and let us go sooner instead."

„Xander!" Willow looked outraged at this shocking suggestion. But then, she loved all of her classes. Buffy looked amused.

"Can we concentrate on our vampires here, please?" Giles finally interrupted and the Scoobies started another research considering a newly appeared vampire whom Buffy let escape the other night.


	2. Chapter 2: Involuntary Approaches

Chapter 2

_AN: Please review, comment, leave tips, this is my first, though long intended attempt_

_I do not own anything; all characters belong to Joss Whedon except for Helen._

_I forgot to mention by Chapter 1: It's set in Season 1 of Buffy, sometime between episode 3 and 4. I had to switch some episodes actually to make them fit into the flow of this story, so you'll find the Incan Mummy here at the beginning, although in the series it comes later :)_

_I also apologize for my english, please bare with me since it's not my native..._

Involuntary approaches

Three weeks at Sunnydale High and Helen already felt like it was the right thing after all, having left England, coming here to this completely strange place, teaching american muggle students. She was beginning to feel well here, kind of homey. The kids were nice enough, at least the majority of them, right now they had this exchange of cultures week, so several foreign students from all over the world were sitting in her classes as well, which was always a nice change. And... even the arts class was fun, she had to admit, she felt a certain satisfaction in teaching it and would say with a lack of modesty that she was doing great. She hasn't tied any friendships yet, she wasn't really a people's person or much into socializing, but then, friendships are overrated, she thought cynically. The librarian seemed quite decent though, sort of mysterious.

Well, and it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that he was British as well? Her inner voice asked amused as she entered the history classroom on a Friday morning where the sophomores were already sitting. „Hello", she smiled at them and proceeded to the door at her left where she shared a small office with another professor, a stuffy Mr. Watts who taught history too. She opened the door, made one step inside and then the students heard a loud noise as she let fall everything out of her hands, and her gentle silent scream „No!" while she was already gliding to the floor, passing out. Several students stood up und hurried to her, Xander was among the first who reached her and after what he saw inside, he couldn't blame Professor McGregor for having fainted at all. The body of the other history teacher was half sitting half lying on his desk, it looked very dead and had a strange grey green color and one could see every single vein on it. They had never seen anything like this before. Xander managed to stop Willow before she would come too near and see the horrible scene.

Both Xander and Willow hurried to the library, after the class was, naturally, dismissed, given what happened. They found Buffy, Ampata, the exchange student from South America, who was staying at Buffy's, and Giles in some argument and told them about the "accident".

„You said, Xander, that Mr. Watts looked like he was ... dried out?" Giles asked, furrowing his brows.

_What followed, you will all know from Episode 2.4 :) The Scoobies killed the Incan Mummy on that same night and all was fine._

Next Monday morning Helen left Principal's office - once again – not satisfied. She was hoping to get some new office room, since she really couldn't, at least not now, face the old one, where just three days ago she found the dead body of her colleague. However, she had prepared an alternative and headed towards the library.

She found Mr. Giles in the "cage", sorting some books, he didn't seem to have noticed her. „H-hh", she coughed and he turned around immediately. „O, Miss... McGregor, good morning!"

„Good morning, Mr. Giles."

„You came to borrow some more pieces", he smiled as he walked towards her, still holding a small pile of books in his hands.

Helen smiled back: „No, actually I wanted to ask you something. I have found myself in some kind of an uncomfortable situation... I was wondering, if... " For some reason she got nervous as she noticed the suddenly interested glance at his face as he looked at her now. Besides, she wasn't really sure how he would react to her request. This was a public school library on one hand, yet it didn't escape her, that at the few times she came in to borrow something, it was either empty or there were just the three kids. Which was actually quite weird now she thought of it... Focus now, she told herself as her mind began again to drift away.

„I was wondering if I could work in the library for a couple of weeks. I don't want to return to my old office after what happened there last week and ..."

„Oh, yes, that was terrible... Are you all right? I heard you found the body, that must have been a ... an unpleasant experience."

„Yes, it was certainly nothing I'd care to see again. Ever." She gave a tensed smile. „As I was saying, I don't really have a place to work right now, since principal Flutie refused to offer me another room, I can't blame him, I guess, there are no more rooms available. He offered me though to switch with someone, but I don't really know anybody here yet well enough to ask, if they would like to take an office where a collegue was killed last week..."

He could hear the sarcasm in her voice.

„Well, to come to the point, I was hoping, that... maybe ...but only if you wouldn't object – and I will totally understand if you will, this is your library and your office is in here – " she was starting to babble again. He raised his hand slowly to stop her and smiled again, very gently.

„Of course you can work here. I couldn't possibly object, even if I wanted to, this is after all a school library and you are entitled to use it whenever you like and to spend here as much time as you wish. "

„I know." She replied slowly. „I noticed however", she paused, not knowing how to put it, „that ... you... well, I just wanted to make sure, that I won't be in the way. Of. Something."

For a second he looked confused but then he realized: „Oh, you are referring to our ... hobby meetings in here." He had to think fast. His first impulse when she asked him was to help her. He liked her. Well, "like" was perhaps an overstatement, he didn't know her at all, but he sort of ... well... liked her. And she was british, so naturally he felt a certain bond between them as fellow countrymen, or so he told himself. In fact over all this he hadn't taken into consideration what her presence in the library would mean for the slayer and the slayerettes and what possible difficulties it might cause them during their researches.

He gave a very unconvincing smile again and said: „It's... we have a club, a hobby... archaeology... club." He stuttered. „I am sure we will all find a way to ... have our meetings without disturbing you..." He now tried to sound as casual and innocent as he could manage: „Perhaps if you could show me your timetable I would rearrange our ... archaeology ... meetings according to it."

She felt a little awkward at this request, though it made sense. He could schedule his "club" during her late classes, but still she sensed his sudden discomfort and was sure that this „archaeology club" was probably not quite the whole truth. Yet, Helen was grateful he offered her a working space here and what he was doing in his library wasn't exactly any of her business. So she pulled her timetable out of her bag and handed it to him.

„Of course. Here." He took it and gave it a quick look. Then he looked at her again as if expecting her to say something else. He couldn't tell whether or not she believed the archaeology-story and it made him nervous. She remained silent and he felt he had to distract her mind from possible thoughts about the white lie he presented her: „You want to start right away I suppose? You're welcome to use my office if you like. It's not very large but there is a free desk in there. Or you can store your things there if you want." He gave a wave towards a glass door on the right side, behind the library-counter. At the same time he thought that this was the most pathetic attempt in history: it was – at least to himself, but she didn't know him so well - too obvious that he was trying to conceal something. Under normal circumstances he would never be this generous and offer her his own office.

„Well thank you, that's very kind of you" Helen said in a surprise. „I wouldn't want to disturb you though. But I'll probably come back to the offer and let my stuff there afterwards, if you don't mind."

„Of course." Again the shy smile at his face. It was so beautiful she thought. He bowed slightly and wanted to go past her which accidentally happened at the same moment as she was about to bypass him taking the same way. Noticing the mistake they both changed the direction which led to another almost-collision and a very awkward moment. They smiled as Giles finally laid his free hand on her right shoulder and showed her politely to pass by.

_:)) pls review. hope it's not too cheesy :) Should I continue?_

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	3. Chapter 3: Involuntary Approaches Part 2

INVOLUNTARY APPROACHES Part 2

Chapter 3

_AN: Here chapter 3, thanks a lot for the kind first review, it did encourage me to post more :)_

The week progressed, to Giles' relief without any troubles. He prepared Buffy and the others to the new „situation" in the library. They nagged about it, naturally, and Willow gave him again that meaningful look – whose meaning actually he again seemed to miss :). But they accepted it, all the easier as it appeared that peace had returned to Sunnydale after they destroyed the Incan Princess. Of course Giles knew only too well that this calm vampire-less period was delusive as he was wondering what kind of a monster they'd have to face next.

So it happened that during that week Helen and the Scoobies met only few times and always only for a short moment in the library – they used to pop in to say hello to Giles, to inquire whether he had anything new for them to work at – archaeology-wise as they always hurried to accentuate when they thought she might hear them – or simply to help him with some new arrivals.

She liked working there, the atmosphere, the smell of the old books, the peace and most of all the silence. Every time she entered the library, stepping in out of the loud crowded bustling school corridor, it felt like acceding another world. It reminded her of the Room of requirement for some reason where she once used to hide. The library too appeared to have a certain „magic" around it, as if no one else could see it or find it. Or enter it, which was true for no one else, nor a student nor a teacher, except for the three kids, really ever came here.

It was late Friday afternoon, Helen, sitting at one of the front wooden tables, finished writing her notes for the day and was about to go pack her things, which she kept stored on the free desk in Mr. Giles' office. She moved towards the room with loud footsteps and cleared her throat to alarm him of her coming in. And indeed almost immediately she heard a frantic flutter of paper pages, slamming of heavy book volumes, followed by a loud clinking – he obviously overturned his teacup - and a silent murmur „O bloody..." Helen smiled to herself since she had already got a similar performance yesterday, and paused in front of the door offering him couple of more seconds. Then she entered and found him, not really surprised, cleaning the mess his spilt tea had left on his notes. She didn't want to stare at them, she was sure that, as the rest of the things he was trying to clean away before she came in, his notes too were of some delicacy and he wouldn't want her to see them. She noticed however that he had a very handsome oldfashioned handwriting, and only on the second sight realized that the notes weren't in English anyway.

He gave her a short look and then continued to dry the pages with a tissue. „I ... I had a little accident here."

Helen repressed another smile, laid her books on the other desk and tried to put an earnest face. „May I help you somehow?" She pulled another tissue out of her pocket, the one he was using over and over was already soppy.

He made no objections so Helen helped him to dry the rest of the pages. The damage didn't seem to be very great. Luckily he apparently managed to put away all the valuable secret volumes before, she thought. Her curiosity was rising gradually as to what matters he might actually be pursuing. But the last thing she wanted was to be inquisitive. People do have the right to have and keep secrets. She was very well aware of that as much as she would ask everyone to accord that same right to herself. That was also one of the reasons why she wasn't much into socialising nor was she too eager to make friends here to whom she would have to explain... Therefore Helen remained very cautious in her contacts with colleagues or others and minded to keep her reserved attitude towards them and sort of a low profile as well.

„Thank you." He said embarrassed as they had finished and he had spread the wet but otherwise undamaged sheets on her desk, where she in the meantime started to collect her stuff she wanted to take home over night.

He stood next to her, his hands in his pockets, once again a little nervous as he felt so caught in the act. He tried a conversation. „So... how ... was your week? Were you, could you work well here?" He closed his eyes for a moment, sure of the silliness of his question.

She didn't seem to notice it though.

„Thank you, yes, it was great." Great? What an answer, Helen thought. But it was the first thing that came into her mind, she didn't really know why. It WAS – great. As she reflected before – it was a nice hall, it was surprisingly well armed when it came to history and arts volumes she needed for her own research, it was comfortable, quiet, cosy... very well built, mysterious and in a very appealing way – but she would never admit it aloud – sexy, his smile had to have melting powers and when he spoke it was what velvet would sound like if it had a voice of its own she was sure... Focus!

She tried it again: „It is a great place to work in. The library." Yeah, that was MUCH better, said her inner voice laughing, good job! Yet poor as this statement might have been it was awarded with another gorgeous smile from his face. They both seemed to realize their mutual nervousness and laughed together. Then she continued in a more relaxed tone. „And because it is such a great place to work in, I was wondering if it's possible to use the library at weekends." She pointed at the pile of books at her desk for explanation.

The request took him by surprise though not an unpleasant one. After all he too used to spend most of his weekends here as well, especially when he was researching some new kinds of evil.

„Of course. I myself will be here too."

„Great. When do you usually arrive?"

„I shall be here at eight."

She re-packed her pile and put only two of the books back in her bag. „Great then. I certainly won't come before nine." She grabbed her car-key, took her bag and went to the door where she turned to him to say goodbye.

„Good bye then, have a nice evening. And careful with the tea. Till tomorrow then."

He laughed a little. „Yes. Good night." And she left.

Next Saturday morning Giles was sitting in his office already from seven a.m. and reading some very old manuscript on a vampire named Castor and forgot all around him. At half past ten Helen arrived and found him scribbling some notes about his reading. „Good morning." He almost jumped. She laughed. „I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." And said to herself: I am seriously thinking about getting myself a cowbell around the neck.

He laughed back. „It's probably good that I already drank up my cup of tea this morning."

„I'll just... take my books and leave you work then." She took a couple of the books and her laptop – towards which Giles directed a very distrustful look - and went to do her own work in the library hall.

She only paused several hours later when her stomach announced itself and with a loud growl-noise it asked for some food. She closed the book and got up. This time she decided not to go into his office to prevent further accidents. Instead she said in loud voice:

„Mr. Giles?"

„... Yes?" She heard him standing up from his desk and seconds later he appeared in the door.

„You need anything?"

„No. I was just going to have a lunch somewhere and wanted to ask you, if there's anything I could bring for you."

„Oh, that's ... very thoughtful, thank you. I already ate." She looked a little surprised.

„A cucumber-sandwich. I brought with. I ate an hour ago."

„Oh." She nodded her head. „Great... Then ... I'll be going. See you later" She put on her coat and was about to leave, but turned around once more and asked to make sure: „You are going to be here, right?"

Giles rose his eyebrows and hurried to say „Yes, yes."

The following Sunday and the next week passed in the same way, with both of them working in the library, no talking, just to say the obligatory „hello" and „good night" to each other, occasionally accompanied by a smile.

It wasn't before next Sunday that they exchanged more than polite greetings. After noon Helen went for lunch and decided to pick up some doughnuts on her way back. She returned to the library as Giles was sorting out some books on the counter.

She raised the paper-bag and said: „I brought some doughnuts. Would you like some? My lunch wasn't very satisfactory..." Giles paused for a moment as she came to stand in front of the counter, waiting for a reply.

Then he answered in a rather hesitating tone. „I think, I could allow myself a little break... Would you like some tea? I've just made a fresh pot."

„That would be nice." Giles went to his office to get the teacups as Helen took off her coat and placed the doughnuts bag on the table next to her books. He came, with two cups of tea in his hands and two plates clamped under his arm. She helped him, took the cups from him and laid them on the table, then packed out the still warm doughnuts. They set down and remained silent for a moment.

Helen wondered if this was such a good idea. As she out of her good spirit made the offer she didn't think as far as to the point where they would actually sit down together and had to talk, have an actual conversation. It was beginning to get awkward as they both at the same time said: „So..." and had to laugh. Then Giles bowed to her: „You first."

„Thanks, but ... there really was no deep thought..." She had lost what she was about to say and was now trying too hard to think of some innocent topic that would keep them both far away from any unpleasant or sensitive questions. Finally he interrupted her hard thinking.

„Are you ... have you settled in well here at the school?... I mean despite the death of Mr. Watts?" He regretted almost immediately that he mentioned this. „I'm sorry. How very insensitive of me..." But Helen didn't seem to be upset.

„Not at all. And thank you, I'd say I have settled rather well. I mean, apart from that. Of which I do hope it was a singular and very rare, not common incident that won't occur again." I've certainly seen enough deaths for a lifetime, she thought.

At this point Giles gave her an absent and forced smile. But he didn't want to tell her, that unfortunately this being Sunnydale and all, an incident like that was pretty much the common thing and that there will very likely be more of the kind. He sipped out of his cup.

„How are your classes? I recall you were quite concerned about teaching the arts class."

„They are fine. Actually, I think I am doing surprisingly well." She replied in a half amused, half proud tone. The tension began to flow away, from both of them. „Thanks to the books you recommended me upon my arrival, I learned the ropes very fast, I had some basics, I just needed to deepen some stuff. And in a couple of classes I simply decided to begin with history of music, for that I knew best... And the students are quite nice... There are exceptions, of course, like everywhere else, but the majority of them are very assiduous, hard working, not so unlike .." She almost added _at Hogwarts_ and came to an abrupt pause.

As he raised his eyes curiously, she said: „..at my previous school." He nodded in understanding.

„What about you? Have you been long here, in Sunnydale?" She took her plate with a doughnut and so made clear that it was now his turn to talk and hers to eat.

„Yes... Well, not too long. Actually not much longer than you. I arrived at the begin of this school year."

It was obvious that he wouldn't say more on the matter.

„It's a very good collection you've got here." She said after a moment of silence, pointing at the bookracks. „I mean, it's certainly an admirable size, especially for a mug-... for a-merican school library." That was a cheap shot, she admitted, but it would give her a much harder time to explain a _muggle_, than to feel embarrassed for having just insulted their host country.

„Yes, it's not bad. Though I must say I brought many of the history-related volumes myself." Could she hear just the slightest sign of pride in his tone?

„Oh? Is that so?"

„Yes." Yet again he wasn't about to give away any more. „But, as you have probably noticed yourself in the last few weeks, there aren't many here who would appreciate it. Hardly anyone ever comes here and when that rare case occurs that students find their way here, because they have to prepare some homework or an essay, they mostly can't get out of here fast enough... But, I am not complaining. In fact that was one of the reasons I took this job, because it promised to be quite solitary, and calm, without too much contact with the students." Helen started to wonder what the other reasons might have been.

So they ate in silence and when finished they each returned back to their work. At eight in the evening Helen decided to call it night, said good night and left.

The next week began very promising. First a new teacher for history arrived, an elderly peculiar Mr. Pescoe. Then another colleague of Helens, the English teacher Mrs. Jennings, who seemed to like Helen a lot for some unknown reason and who knew of her office-situation, finally suggested to her fellow english-teacher to switch their classrooms and attached offices, so that by the middle of the week Helen found herself in a new classroom, sharing a working place there with Mr. Pescoe. Mr. Pescoe however seemed to have cultivated during his clearly long teacher-career a number of rather annoying working habits, such as humming or whistling or sudden outbursts of enthusiasm, when he came across an interesting passage in his readings.

On the Wednesday afternoon for example they were both sitting in their common office, preparing their lessons in silence, when out of nothing he cried out: „A-ha! There!" Helen got the scare of her life. This was followed by several as loud and as unexpected _I knew it!_s and _Of course!_s, so that by the end of the day Helen was having serious doubts whether this switch really was an improvement to her previous office-less (yet Giles-y) situation.

She had already told Giles the day before, that she won't spook in the library that much anymore and that she got a new room. It probably was just a fancy of her, but she thought she saw a little shadow of disappointment on his face.

It was on Friday again, that one bad news followed another. First the mascot of the school, a small pig that Principal Flutie bought for their squad, had been eaten by someone. But the most awful thing happened in the afternoon, when all teachers were summoned and told that principal Flutie died after an attack of wild dogs that apparently accessed his office through the window. They were all given the warning to keep the windows shut and were dismissed. With very mixed feeling Helen returned along with Mr. Pescoe to her classroom, where they talked for a while. He was about to stay and work in their office. She needed to prepare an exam for next Monday herself, but decided to work in the classroom instead of the office, where his constant outcries would distract or scare her every few minutes. However she took care that he wouldn't think she was working outside because of him. His ways might have been annoying, but she sort of came to like him and had respect for him, he obviously had a great knowledge and competence when it came to his subject, what she could clearly see very soon after having a few conversations with him.

At six in the evening Mr. Pescoe left for home and Helen stayed alone, she had a hard time to concentrate, besides she had a bad feeling that something was up. Her hand once again ran automatically to the pocket of her jeans where she wore her wand. She didn't have much use for it after what happened, but she used to wear it anyway, in a way it belonged to her and she belonged to it, no matter what she's done before. She and that nine and a half inches long, mahogany stick, with an unusual core of powdered dragon scales and a unicorn hair were closely connected.

She wasn't half finished with her work when short after seven she remembered she wanted to look for a book about the French revolution in the library to borrow it for the weekend. Only too glad to have an excuse to leave the work her mind wasn't in at all, she got up and headed to the library. The school was already empty and a spooky silence reigned in the corridors. As she was approaching, she heard voices. It was Willow talking to Xander. She entered and to her shock noticed that Xander was locked in the cage and shouting at Willow to let him out, while she turned her back to him and walked to her computer.

„Willow! What is going on?" Helen asked. Before Willow could give an answer, there was a loud bang and someone broke a window on the library. Helen recognized another student of hers, a very unpleasant boy, but she could barely have a better look, when a second window broke and a girl, with a disturbing almost beastly expression on her face was already climbing in. Willow grabbed her teacher's hand and dragged her behind herself, running out of the library hall. They ran through half of the school but they could hear fast approaching footsteps and loud, again animal-like breathing behind them, when Willow in panic finally pushed Helen in an empty classroom. They locked the door and were trying to move some tables in front of it. Obviously - it was no time for questions.

But the person or group outside was too strong. They were banging on the door and it was only a matter of moments when they would force their way into the room. Willow and Helen hid under a table.

„What do they want?" Helen whispered.

Willow was trying to suppress the panic in her voice: „Without exaggeration? I'd say, they already digested the principal and now they're looking for their dinner."

Helen had no time to comprehend this very disturbing answer. After a loud crash they heard at least two persons entering the room.

Helen felt she had no choice. She took her wand out of her pocket.

_Pls. review, comment, correct my English. _

_Next chapter - "Revelations" - already in progress :)_


	4. Chapter 4: Revelations

Chapter 4

Revelations

_You'd probably realized by now, that the background story is from the 1.6 Episode "The Pack", which I am using here – again not owning anything but the character of Helen, whom I hope to introduce a little more closely in this chapter._

_Please review, I am very unsure how the writing is, or the story, is it boring? Would you like to read some more? I'll be happy for any kinds of critics, feedbacks, anything that might prove someone had read this tale :)_

Willow stared at the wand in Helen's hand, but said nothing. Then someone jumped on the table under which they were hiding and a voice sang: „Wii-lloow? Wheere could you poss-sibly bee?"

Helen carefully crawled from underneath the table, aimed her wand at the boy: „_Stupefy!_" The wand gave a blue spark, but the boy remained unharmed and looked now with a certain curiosity down at Helen. She got up and tried again, now aiming it at Xander, who stood in front of the door. Again nothing happened. Panic started to take hold of her. She hasn't been expecting much, but surely she had hoped that she would manage at least a simple stunning spell! Xander was walking towards them and to their horror they heard more approaching footsteps and growling coming from the hallway. In her desperation Helen aimed her wand at the ceiling lamp above Xander's head and tried to cast a spell. It worked. The lamp crashed down and knocked him out in about the same time as Buffy and Giles ran into the room. Buffy quickly took care of the other hyena boy behind them, leaving Helen in a complete amazement of her unusual strength. After a moment of surprise of seeing the new teacher there, Buffy told them to leave and get to the zoo while she was to take care of the pack.

„Right, let's go!" cried Willow and ran out, followed by Giles and Helen. They were about to leave the school building when Helen had to stop. The effects of the few spells she cast were already beginning to announce themselves. She felt tired, worn out. Giles and Willow turned back at her.

„What- is- going on here?" She asked with her hand on her chest. Giles turned around, but didn't stop. „We need to get to the zoo. I ... I'll have to explain later. I'm sorry! There's my car. We must get there before Buffy and the others!"

So Helen moved again and soon reached Giles' car. They all got in, Helen on the front seat next to Giles, Willow at the back.

She decided to wait for them to start an explanation and remained silent. So did Giles. He took a look at the both of them, searching for any traces of wounds or injuries. „Are you both all right?" He asked while starting the car. They both just nodded, Willow kept looking nervously at the school.

Helen gave him an inquisitive look, but he kept his eyes firmly staring at the road.

He didn't know how to start. How to tell a person who has no idea of a slayer, a watcher, probably never heard of demons and surely doesn't believe in vampires and their alikes, that there were five kids outside, being possessed by the spirit of hyenas? And most of all how was he supposed to explain without making a complete fool of himself? She'll think I am insane...

„All right," he murmured more to himself, trying to gather some courage. „Eh—it will probably sound ... eh- a little .. fantastic ... to you, you're likely not to believe any of it-"

„Believe me, Giles, she is. Just tell her." Willow interrupted him and Helen noticed her rolling her eyes in the driving mirror.

Giles frowned his forehead a little at this remark and looked at Helen for a second, before he returned his glance to the road.

„Ehm... the children... the... the...", he started.

„Xander's been possessed by a hyena." Willow interrupted him, in an impatient voice.

Helen furrowed her eyebrows and turned around to look at Willow. „What?"

Willow repeated: „Xander and the others, they've been possessed by the spirits of hyenas they met at the zoo this week. It's called..."

„An actual transpossession?" Helen asked, clearly amazed. Giles looked at her, unable to hide his astonishment. „How..? Why..."

„I've heard of it. Predatory animals, primals, wanting to get back to the pure animal state, back-to-nature kind of thing, it sounded like an old fairy tale to me though." She said.

„No fairy tale here, trust me", said Willow, while Giles was still unable to draft a sentence.

„How did it happen? Or perhaps more importantly - how do you intend to reverse it?"

„Giles!" Willow addressed him in an urgent voice as he still seemed to be speechless. „What did you find out at the zoo? Can it be done?"

„Eh, yes, yes." He gave one more canny look to Helen, as if wanting to make sure that she really wouldn't find him a lunatic, although she apparently knew and understood more than they thought. „Buffy and I talked to the zookeeper and he also believed it is possible. We need to get them back to the hyenas' compound. There we must set a ... a ritual before they arrive so that the spirits will be driven out of them back to the hyenas."

„Sounds easy." Said Willow in a high voice. „What should We do?" She asked just as they reached the zoo and Giles parked his car in front of the entrance. They all got out and hurried to the hyena-house.

There Giles told them to stay outside, he was about to go in and check on the zookeeper. They should warn him as soon as they would hear Buffy and the others approaching.

Helen however couldn't stay still. She didn't know why she felt the urge to follow the librarian, although she knew it wasn't right to let Willow standing alone outside. But she couldn't help it. She suddenly turned on the spot, murmured „I am going to check on them. Wait here." – to Willow and disappeared in the entrance of the hyena house.

Approaching she heard Giles saying: „_How terribly frustrating for you, that a bunch of schoolchildren could accomplish what you could not_." As she was almost with them, she heard the other man, obviously the zookeeper replying: „_It bothered me. But the power will be mine_."

Helen came forward with a nonunderstanding expression at her face: „What...?"

„Run! It's a trap!" Giles shouted at her, but it was too late. The zookeeper, apparently very well prepared for the ritual, with an actual masai-elder-costume, hit Giles with a stock he was holding in one hand and before Helen could react or even take out her wand, she too was knocked out unconscious.

When she woke up, Giles was kneeling above her: „Are you alright?" She didn't answer, but took a look of her surroundings. They seemed to be in a small closet, in the zoo, in almost total darkness. Giles helped her to get up. „We need to get out!" Helen thought that that was an unnecessary remark. They started looking for a door and indeed seconds later Giles found a doorknob. But, big surprise, it was locked. He started to pound against the door, but it was solid. For the second time that evening Helen took her wand and pointed it at the door. She laid her free hand softly at Giles' arm that was trying to beat the door open. „Let me." Giles turned around towards her in a little surprise, which she couldn't see because of the darkness, but he stepped back a little.

„_Alohomora_" was the next he heard and then Helen opened the door. „How...?" But she was already storming out of the closet. They both came running into the hyena-place, where Xander was holding Willow, Buffy was saying something to them. Judging by their expressions, it was all over

„Did we miss anything?" Giles asked.

„Not really." Buffy answered.

„What happened?" Helen demanded to know, so Buffy told them, also of the unfortunate death of the not so innocent zookeeper.

„Apparently WE missed something too." Said Willow out of nothing and looked at Helen. So did Giles, in expectation of hearing some explanations. Buffy and Xander looked at each other, not having the slightest idea, what was going on.

Helen understood, but shook her head and took a step towards the exit. „Not now." She was feeling dizzy already and had to take a halt at the wall. „Monday." She looked at them once more and gave a week smile. „I want to ... go home now."

Giles came closer to her, unsure what to do or what to say. „Do you want someone to come with you? Will you be alright? You seem a little..."

„No, it's fine. Have a nice evening." She was about to leave, but turned one last time at him. „Well,... despite... this." And off she was. In front of the hyena house, she sighed. I am so going to regret this in the morning... she thought as she turned on the spot and disapparated back into her house.

Buffy and Xander looked alternately at Willow and Giles. „Are you planning on telling us anytime soon?"

All four of them walked slowly out of the zoo, while Willow was telling them, what happened in the classroom, how the history-teacher took a wooden stick, how Willow thought at first, it was a vampire stake, and how Helen made it sparkle several times and pointed it at the ceiling lamp with the amazing effect of making it fall at Xander's head.

„So it's actually her fault my head feels like a sack of moving-"

„She used a wand?" Giles asked Willow once more. It couldn't be... Of course, he thought, she must have used it at the door before as well, but in the darkness he couldn't see it, he only heard her casting the spell. But... could it really be...

„I'll talk to her on Monday", he interrupted the ongoing confused discussion between Buffy, Xander and Willow. „There is no point in guessing here." Buffy looked at him as if she wanted to object.

„She didn't do any harm. She was trying to protect us." Willow said to reassure them and they all dropped the subject. Until they talked to her, there really was no point in making any guesses.

So Giles drove them all home. On his drive back to his apartment his mind kept revolving around the young history teacher. Or how young was she? Where did she come from? Why was she there? Away from England and in Sunnydale of all places? And the most intriguing question: Who or what was she? He knew nothing about her, but for what she looked like. She might have been around 30, wasn't tall, but slim, which made her look even more tiny, had brown eyes and light brown hair that she wore mostly tied at the back of her head. She had very polite, gentle and kind manners, almost shy, as if she was in constant and anxious worry not to disturb anyone with her existence, wasn't talking much, always appeared to be preparing and to weighing every single word before she spoke it out loud. Yet she was always friendly when talking to him, she usually played with her scarf – an accessoire she seemed to have wrapped around her neck at all times – especially when she was nervous. Giles smiled unconsciously at the image of her standing in his office as she came to tell him, that she got a new classroom: During those few minutes they talked, her fingers hadn't stopped playing with the dark green scarf for a moment. He decided to go and talk to her on Monday straight after her classes – he still knew her timetable by heart.

Yet Helen didn't show at school on Monday, she had to call in and asked the principal to be excused for the day due to an illness. The disapparition had cost her her last sources of energy, she barely made it to bed on Friday night and her state didn't improve much by the next morning. Her whole circulation was completely messed up and her nose was in an on/off-bleeding mode during the whole weekend, so that when on Monday morning she regained enough focus to look at her reflection in the mirror, it was clear to her that she couldn't face her students like this, with huge dark circles under her eyes, pale as death and still barely keeping her balance, not to mention that she was hardly capable of teaching.

It was Willow who told Giles about Ms. McGregor being absent that Monday.

„Oh? She didn't come?" He looked up from his book in surprise.

„Nope. Called herself ill this morning." Willow answered.

„Well, when will she be back?"

„I don't know. She's only been put on substitute for today, so I am guessing tomorrow she should show."

„Hm." Giles just nodded and sank back into his thoughts.

And indeed the next day Helen managed – she left an hour earlier than usually to avoid the masses in front of the school – to get out of her house, into her car and somehow into her classroom, though she thought, she still looked like a walking death. Somehow the day passed, and it was early afternoon, she stayed in her classroom, working at the teacher's desk – Mr. Pescoe was working in their office and occasionally she could hear his joyful – or indignant and outraged – cries – depending whether or not he agreed with the thesis of the writer he was currently reading – through the door. Helen was about to work for an hour or two, to prepare her lessons for the next day, then she wanted to – well, she didn't really wanted, but she felt she had to – go to the library and finally get and offer some explanations, that were in place after last week's events.

She was just writing down some notes when she heard a knock on the opened door. She raised her eyes and saw Giles standing in the door frame. Her heart jumped for a second.

Then she smiled at him. He took it as an invitation and entered. „Hello." He said, as he walked slowly in, keeping his hands in his pockets - as he often did, when he felt a little insecure or was trying to remain calm – and his eyes on his shoes, after he gave her a quick look.

„Hello." She replied.

He came closer to her desk and she felt her heartbeat getting faster. It's been long since the last time that happened to her.

„I thought I'd find you in your new office." He said wondering a little, and nodded with his head at the door which led to her and Mr. Pescoe's office. „Is it not to your liking?"

„Oh, right." She shook her head. „No, no. Not at all. It's... it's a great room. It's just, it had turned out that my new colleague has rather, well, let's say he has some habits that require a certain-ah- disposition to ... bear them." She felt bad about talking bad about Mr. Pescoe.

„Oh?" Said Giles with raised eyebrows. In that precise moment a half loud, yet well audible cry from behind the office door could be heard:

„_That was the Spanish, you ditsy idiot!_"

They both, Helen and Giles looked towards the door.

„Oh." Now Giles understood. Helen gave an apologetic smile.

„It's good you're here. You saved me the journey to the library." She said, but remained sitting at her desk and didn't stand up. Giles came yet closer and noticed only now, how dreadful she looked. She must have been really ill, he thought.

„Yes... We perhaps need to talk."

„Yes."

Silence.

„Seems like we both have kept some rather grave secrets." He said, looking at the floor.

Helen nodded. This is so hard, she wished it would be over already. „Who is to start?" She finally asked.

Now he raised his glance from the floor and looked her into her eyes with eager interest. „Who are you? ... Are you a witch?"

Helen shrugged a little at this direct straightforward question. In a very hesitant tone she said „Yes."

Giles nodded slowly, it didn't surprise him really, yet...

„How...? Where..? Where did you learn all this? How did you - become a witch?" He asked, his eyebrows frowned, but his expression wasn't unfriendly nor wary. Clearly he was just very curious to know.

„I was born like this." Helen replied, starring at the notes on the desk in front of her. „My parents were wizards, both of my older brothers as well, so the chances were pretty high, that I too would inherit their ... magical blood." She said it in an undertone that made clear how she disliked the phrase.

Now Giles stared at her. From all he knew magical skills weren't hereditary. It didn't make any sense to him. He himself was acquainted with a few who had magical powers, which they were either born with or acquired through tedious studies of the occults, but he never had heard of anyone who would pass those powers to their children.

She noticed his blank gaze so she continued to explain. „I was taught at a – or THE - Wizarding School in the Black Forest, in Germany, and then after the recommendation of one of my teachers I spent one more year at Hogwarts. That's the..."

„Hogwarts?" Now Giles' head jumped up and he looked at her first in disbelief, then as if a sudden comprehension came upon him.

Helen was puzzled. He couldn't possibly have heard of Hogwarts. Could he...?

„You said Hogwarts? I've heard the name, of a school for witches and warlocks..."

„That's _wizards_. They're really delicate about that." She smiled. „How exactly is that – "

„I always thought it was a myth!" Giles continued in an astounded voice, finding it harder and harder to hide his excitement. „A school where they learn magics with wands... Willow told me you used a wand... You are an actual, a real witch then?" He looked amazed and for a moment they both remained silent, staring at each other, Helen offering him time to absorb and waiting for him to fill her gaps. Then he shook his head slightly. „I'm sorry, you must wonder..." For a second he examined her, he was thinking of how much he should tell her. He still didn't know, why she was here, what her agenda was, what her goals. Yet something about her - he couldn't describe it - made him trust her. He was sure, that she wasn't here for any evil cause.

„It's a... for that to explain, I am afraid, I'll have to start at a ..." He suddenly stopped and took a close, scanning look at her.

„Do you... Are you likely to believe in vampires?"

The question bewildered her for a moment and she looked at him very confused. „Why – yes. I do. It's not a question of faith really..." Good, he thought and interrupted her.

„Then it won't be as hard."

„All right." Said Helen reluctantly, wondering, what was about to come.

„There's something you need to know about Buffy. She is a vampire slayer."

Helen rose her eyebrows but let him go on, ready to contain every information he would be presenting her with. „She kills vampires and fights all kinds of other demons. Those are unfortunately quite frequent here in Sunnydale."

A Slayer! Again, she had heard of those long time ago, but never really knew whether or not to believe it. Apparently, this was the week of confirmed myths. But who was he? What part was he playing in all this? „When you say a vampire slayer-"

„There is but one. A "_chosen one_" if you like, and Buffy is it. As long as there've been the vampires, there's been the slayer... And almost that long there's been her watcher."

„A watcher?"

„A... a guide, a trainer, a couch if you will. Someone who is helping her, who prepares her for the fights, provides her with the necessary knowledge about the demons, their particular specific natures, behaviours, their weaknesses and strengths..."

„Does it have something to do with the Watchers Council?" Helen asked as she remembered something.

Giles wondered. „Yes. There is a Watchers council, their headquarters is in London, it's a ... how did you hear about this?"

„There was a department at the Ministry I passed along couple of times, years ago, and it said "WC-matters", no one really knew what it meant, so – given the name – everyone was inventing jokes about what kind of research or counselling they could possibly be doing behind a door with that label..." She noticed his raised eyebrows and decided it'd be better to drop the amused tone and definitely not to mention any examples for those jokes. „-until someone told me it actually meant a Watchers Council, without being able to tell more." He didn't reply, but was piercing at her, which made her nervous – her hand wandered again to the silk scarf wrapped losely around her neck. Giles smiled imperceptibly.

„So-uh, you're the watcher then?" She asked.

„Yes. I've been Buffy's watcher since the start of this school year. So you're saying, that the Ministry- wait, what Ministry? has some contact to Watchers Council?"

„I'm sorry, I don't know anything about it. Like I said, there was, few years ago I saw it last, this small department at the Ministry of magic, an office, that was dealing with Council matters, I don't even know if they're still operating. Nobody seemed to know much about it, and I have to confess I didn't attach much notice to it either... I'd guess they perhaps had some sort of a cooperation, or contact at least, as they had with the muggle Prime Minister, not on regular basis I'd suppose, but maybe they were exchanging information? I'd have thought you would know better, as one of them." She didn't mean to, but her words obviously hit some wound point in him, though he was trying to conceal it, but his sarcastic tone was unmistakable: „So would I. But... no. Apparently I wasn't considered important enough to be entrusted with a knowledge of that kind." I am after all but the Watcher of the current Slayer, he thought bitterly. He gave a hurt, bitter smile.

„Well, you know now." She said in a voice, that was trying to cheer him up. He looked at her thankfully.

„So what happened last week, with the transpossession, is it ... common here?"

„Yes, I'm afraid it is. I mean, not the hyena transpossession, but demons, vampires, all sorts of evil things like revived mummies, or witches... oh..."

_:)))) please review, comment, criticize, anything proving someone actually read this would be nice :)))_

_Next chapter already in progress._


	5. Chapter 5: I've got a new book!

Chapter 5

_A/N: Still not owning anything, but Helen, all other characters belong to Joss Whedon or J.K. Rowling :)_

„I didn't mean..." This was so embarrassing, Giles closed his eyes for a moment and wished himself swallowed up by the Hellmouth itself. Somehow he found the courage to continue: „I didn't mean you, you're- obviously a good- witch." He hurried to reduce the damage, though she was staring at him in surprise rather than in anger. „We had some weeks ago... there was this witch, that almost killed Buffy. And she was evil." He emphasized the last words. Helen nodded understandingly. „But we – Buffy – destroyed her." He added reassuringly. Helen's eyes widened at this statement and she thought for a split of a second whether it had really been the right thing having told him so much. They seemed to be "slaying" a lot around here and – perhaps – so it would appear to a stranger - in a slightly self-justice-manner? Should she worry?

Giles noticed her concerned expression and evidently he too realized, how unsettling his words had sound. „I'm sorry. It does sound more terrible than it actually is. You must understand that we are fighting demons here on our own, vampires mostly, to prevent them..." Giles didn't know how to finish that sentence without making it worse, he paused.

„When you said they were frequent here...? How is that?"

„It has to do with this place", he started, thankful for the absolution in form of another question, and came yet a little closer to her, to lean onto her desk.

„I've been researching it since I'd arrived here. Sunnydale appears to be set on top of the-eh Hellmouth, it is a centre of mystical convergence, sort of a-eh .. a portal between this, our dimension and other hell dimensions, full of demons, hellgods and their alikes. We don't know a whole lot about it yet, but I suppose it must be sending a great deal of attraction to the vampires and demons in this world, so they keep coming here, pulled by its vibrancy only they can feel. Or so I imagine."

He suddenly bent forward and looked at her with furrowed eyebrows and asked in a secretive undertone. „Have you been sent here? By your... your ministry? Did they perhaps send you for the same reason? Surely – given your powers – you're not here by a coincidence."

She laughed unconvincingly. „I am though. Well, not entirely, but... I don't have much witchcraft left you see." She turned to the notes on her desk, avoiding his eyes. „I've lost most of my powers after the Battle of Hogwarts. And I haven't regained them ... yet." She said in a low voice. It wasn't quite the truth, but during the past months she managed to believe this self-deception herself, as much as keeping the faith, that she would indeed one day recoup her magic.

„No, it's much simpler actually. I wanted to leave England after that and was unsure as where to go. Then I talked to the minister of magic, who's a friend of mine, and as I was telling him about my plans for a leave but not knowing where to go – he fetched this list of the bottom of one of his drawers, and asked me _How do you feel about California_?" She expected the confused look in Giles' face, so she went forth. „The Ministry had been keeping, over centuries apparently, this list of, well let's say strange places all over the world, where – and I am simplifying it now a lot – once upon a time someone wrote something about like that it's worth to go there or there is something wrong with this place or that's a paradise for wizards or so. And there were a few places on it without actual records or any details. Anyway, he suggested me to take a look at Sunnydale here or... what was the other place... Ef.. Forks. Yes, Forks, somewhere up in the north. I looked it up and it was supposed to be the place with the _worst_ and most _sunnyless_ weather, so obviously that made it easy to decide. And that's how I landed here... And now you told me actually why. Whoever had this place put on the list must have known about the ... how did you call it again?"

„Hellmouth." Giles said absentmindedly.

„Hellmouth, right."

„Hm." He stared at her and seemed to be thinking about something. After a moment of silence she looked at her watch and realized that it was already very late. She needed to be at home in an hour at the latest.

„Oh, Merlin's beard, it's... got quite late. When did that happen?" Her voice woke Giles up.

„I am sorry, have I been holding you up?"

„No, not at all, it was-eh good that we talked, very interesting. Yet I am afraid I have to go now. I bought a piano last week and it's to be delivered tonight so I should get home before it arrives." She slowly got up to her feet, and started to pack her things.

„Of course. Do you need any help? Should I carry some of your things, walk you to your car?" He asked as he pushed himself up from the desk he was leaning on, having noticed her not being as fit as usual.

Normally Helen would politely refuse, but due to the fact that she was still feeling unwell – that was her pretext, she wouldn't admit quite yet, that she just enjoyed his company and that the thought of him walking alongside of her made her heart do that little hop again – she accepted.

„Thank you, that's very kind of you. Yes..." She put her books in a bag, her laptop in another and Giles took them – both – while letting her go ahead. Always the gentlemen, she thought.

„There's one more thing," he said as they reached her car at last. „I will have to tell Buffy." Helen nodded. She found the car key and opened the door at the co-driver side where Giles placed her stuff.

„I know. It's fine. As long as it stays between the ... what ... five of us, and I won't find it in the morning paper..." She smiled at him, then saw the question in his eyes. „I won't tell anyone." She assured him, then added, rather to herself: „There's no one to tell." She came to the driver's door, which Giles held now open for her.

„Thank you", she said finally as she was seated in the car and took a last look at him.

„Good night." He wished her in a hardly audible voice and with a strange glance on his face, but before she could make out its meaning he had already closed her door and stepped back. He gave a short wave, then turned around and walked back towards the school.

Giles told the gang on the next day the facts he got from the new - magical - history teacher and while those haven't been as surprising to him, they certainly didn't miss their effect on the scoobies. Particularly Xander was having a hard time comprehending these, and by the end of the day he had Giles almost driven mad, when for the 50th time he went: „I still can't believe there is such a thing as a Ministry of Magic." Or a moment later: „A Ministry... of Magic. Wow." „Did she tell if there's an army too? And do they have like a president of their own then, or do they accept ... whoever you have in England?"

„That would be the queen." Said Giles through his teeth.

Willow gave Xander a reprehending look and whispered. „They don't have a president in Britain. It's a monarchy, Xander. Honestly, don't you listen to the news at all?" But Xander just grinned and after a few moments of silence he started wondering again aloud:

„Do you think they would accept me at that wizarding school? I could use some... "

Giles, who was trying to do some important reading, had had it. „Xander!" He snapped, then added in a slightly calmer but still irritated voice: „Go home. Please."

Christmas came and Helen decided to stay in Sunnydale, to unpack the last couple of her boxes, to get warm with her new piano, to just spend a few relaxing school-free days. She had written some Christmas cards to Harry, George, Ron and Hermione, asking the latter by-the-way whether she knew some reliable books on vampires and could sent her those. Hermione didn't wonder but was pleased at the request which showed that her former teacher considered her some sort of an authority when it came to specialist literature. She hurried to send Helen two volumes she found were most interesting, so that Helen spent the New Year's Eve and the following couple of days buried among those musty vampire-related pages. Yet after she finished the reading, she wasn't quite satisfied, but filled with more questions she had before. They both described vampires rather elaborately, their ways, their strengths, their habits, but nowhere could be found an explanation or a history as to when did they first emerge or why. Nor could she find anything about the Slayer in there, which was odd. So she decided do ask Giles, perhaps he could let her borrow some of his secret volumes. She smiled at the thought of him.

So upon the first school day of the new year Helen walked into the library, carrying a rather large gift-wrapped book-sized object – a present she wanted to bribe Giles with, so that he would let her read some his own vampire-books.

She found him sitting in his office, entirely intent upon some work. She knocked gently at the half-opened door. At least she didn't scare him. He raised his head from his reading, his eyes unfocused and blank, apparently his mind was still occupied with the content of the manuscript laying in front of him.

„Hi." She said, leaning in the door frame. „Happy New Year." She wasn't sure whether to enter or not.

He seemed to have come to himself again and stood up. „Oh, eh- thank you, and to you too. Have you ... spent a nice holiday?"

„Yes, it was ok. Quiet and calm. You?" Now she slowly entered the room and came closer to his desk."

„Same."

„Eh- I – brought you something. Consider it a late Christmas present, if you like." Somewhat clumsily and with a sheepish glance she offered him the large package. Giles stared at it in surprise, then took it, not knowing what to say.

„I thought you might ... find it interesting, since you mentioned you've heard of Hogwarts before." He looked at her, still speechless, then started to unwrap it.

„I am sorry, I don't have anything in return." He said slowly, now looking at the cover of an old edition of _Hogwarts. A history_.

„There is of course a new edition from last year, but I like this one better, all the bad stuff hadn't happened there yet."

Giles kept looking from the cover at Helen and back, stroking the golden letters of the title.

„I don't know what to say."

„I am sorry, I didn't want to put you in an awkward position, and... I must confess that the intention wasn't quite selfless." He raised his eyebrows suspiciously.

„I've been reading up on vampires over the holiday in some volumes I could get from a friend, but it didn't quite answer all my questions." She blushed a little and her fingers jumped up to her green neckerchief. „I was wondering whether you would-eh perhaps lend me some of yours. That is – if you don't mind." She now dared to look at him and saw a tiny sign of amusement around his face, which then quickly disappeared.

„Sure. What would you like to know?" He asked and signed her to follow him into the library. „You see there are innumerable accounts on vampires I could offer you." Helen could discern again the proud undertone in his voice as he was telling this.

He walked towards the cage in the library and opened one of the cupboards there, then looked at her with expectation.

„Oh, right, I read a lot about their appearance, their "life-style" and that kind, but I'd like to know more about the origins, how did they come to live here when you say there are other, hell dimensions full of demons."

Giles paused for a while, then put a finger on his lips to think for a moment. After that he took out three rather old looking books and handed them to Helen. „Here. These might answer at least a part of your questions."

Helen thanked and after a quick look at her watch realized that she already was late for her history class. „Thanks again, I'll have them brought back in a few days. I have to go now." She smiled one last time, then hurried out of the library.

Later that day Giles was sitting at the large table of his library, reading the Hogwarts History, his excitement growing with every page. Buffy came in for a training session and found him in this exalted mood, so opposite to her own – after a math exam. „Hi." She murmured and threw her bag carelessly at the table next to her Watcher. Giles looked at her, his face shining.

„I've got a new book."

_Pls. review._


	6. Chapter 6: Joining the Party

Chapter 6

Buffy glanced at him, shook her head, then rolled her eyes, as she threw herself into the chair opposite to him. „Oh good. 'cos god knows you don't have enough of _those_." She said in a sarcastic tone.

Giles ignored her and hurried to finish the chapter. When he raised his eyes at her finally, she was looking at him, very annoyed.

„What is it now?" Giles asked in this patiently parenting voice.

„Grrh, nothing." Buffy sighed.

Giles glared at her. „Clearly it's something. You don't want to train today? Because that would be fine with me..." He gave a stolen longing glance at the book in front him. „We could postpone the cross bow training, if you want."

„No." She said rather absentmindedly. „It's not that." She paused, than leaned abruptly towards Giles. „Do you think that I have a first-rate mind?"

Giles stared, opened his mouth and moved his lips, but unsure of what to say, closed it again, and kept looking at her confused, shaking his head slightly to indicate that he did not understand the question. And would rather avoid the answer.

She leaned back in her chair, sighing again. „Mr. Gregory told me he expects great things from me, 'cos _I'd have a first rate mind._" She frowned, then jumped up. „Let's get the cross bow and train." And she was off towards the cage where Giles kept the weapons. Unwillingly he closed the book, the lecture would have to wait.

On the next day, after having heard the terrible news of the founding of Dr. Gregory's, a biology colleague, headless body in the canteen, Helen hesitantly decided to go to the library and see Giles, he might have an idea on what was going on.

When she entered the library hall she found all four of them seated around the large table in the middle, talking. As they noticed her, Giles stood up and walked towards her. „Miss McGregor." He said expecting for her to say something.

„Mr. Giles?" She came closer, then looked at the three teenagers, then turned back at Giles as she stopped right in front of him. She went on in a silent tone. „I heard about Dr. Gregory."

Giles nodded, his eyes fixed on the floor. „Yes. It's... terrible. They are still a little shaken. Xander, Buffy and Willow found the body." He pointed with his head towards the group. Then he turned back at her.

„Oh." Helen said, her eyes just widened in terror as she imagined what it must have been like. Together they walked slowly towards the group of the three students. They all raised their heads as Helen asked: „Was it vampires?"

„We-eh ... don't know yet. Apparently there is a new vampire in town, according to Buffy's friend he seems to be particularly vicious." Giles began to explain.

„Yeah," Buffy stood up, rubbed her still a little wet eyes. It took her aback that the only teacher who seemed to hold her in high esteem should find such a horrible fate „We assume he has forks instead of hands or something."

„But we can't be sure whether it was him who killed Dr. Gregory."

„But I'm going to find out." Buffy sounded determined. Now Giles turned to her, saying: „Buffy, I know you are upset, but this is no time to go hunting. Not until we know more. Please promise me you won't do anything rush." Buffy looked at him in a very innocent way, then sat back down on her chair. „Cross my heart." Giles glanced at her suspiciously and wanted to say something further when Xander interrupted him, addressing Helen:

„So you're a witch then."

She smiled rather bashfully and raised her eyebrows, somewhat surprised, answering. „Yes."

„Cool. Of course we know a lot about witches. At the start of the school year there was Amy's mom..." Suddenly he stopped abruptly, as he noticed Giles, who was standing behind her, shaking his head frantically, saying soundless No's, which made him stop.

„Yes," she turned around at Giles. „Mr. Giles mentioned the ... incident."

„Well, Amy's mother however wasn't a Hogwarts witch, she was a ... different-ah kind of witch... "

„Really?" Xander asked, obviously very interested in this topic. „So are there more of YOUR kind here?" And he looked over her head at Giles: „Or is that once again one of those exclusive british things?" There was a faint sign of irony and jealousy in his tone that made the corners of Helen's mouth twitch to a smile.

„By no means. I don't know about ... well, Sunnydale. But there are wizarding communities in the north – somewhere in the northwest of Canada, around the Great Slave lake. And then in Texas. Near Fort Worth. And there is also a large community in Mexico. Very nice people, quite different though, we've been there couple of years ago."

„Who's _we_?" Xander asked.

The question took her by surprise. She didn't even realise she said the _we._ She looked at Giles for a split of a second then quickly turned back at Xander and said in the most casual tone she could manage: „My husband and me."

„A-ha!" Xander cried out triumphantly, turning to Willow. „You owe me one free homework, Will." They, Giles, Buffy and Helen, stared at them confused, so Xander went on to explain.

„We bet. I tried to persuade Willow there is no way someone like you ain't married." Helen glanced at Willow in some sort of an amused disbelief, the girl gave her an apologetic look. Then she raised her head to face Xander for a moment and said: „I am sorry then, Xander, you lost." She began to pace slowly, away from him towards one of the chairs at the end of the table.

„What?" He looked at her, shaking his head, not understanding her words.

She came to a halt, her hands on the chair's back.

„I'm not married." She said in a clear voice.

„But- you just said.."

„I am a widow. Twice."

There was an unpleasant silence, everyone's eyes were directed at the young woman, hers fixed at the seat in front of her.

Finally, Giles was the first to speak as he saw Xander's mouth open to say something, and – afraid that the boy might as so often before say something completely misplaced – he said:

„Xander. There are no jokes that would be appropriate." Helen looked up to see Xander's mouth shut again.

„Actually, there is one." She leaned now against the wooden railing behind her. Giles frowned. „It keeps slipping into my mind ever since – _To lose one husband may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose another looks like carelessness_..." She watched absentmindedly a fly moving on the table, for a moment lost in her thoughts. They all stared at her, Buffy raised her eyebrows, slightly shocked. Helen noticed this and shrugged, a little embarrassed. „I'm sorry, it's not very funny, it's just... seems to fit somehow." _As if there was some truth in it I haven't discovered yet._

„It works with parents too though." Said Xander, trying to lighten up the atmosphere.

Giles sighed, then rolled his eyes. „It's from Oscar Wilde, _The Ideal Husband_. It was written about parents." He said, putting all his efforts on sounding patient.

„I believe it's from _The Importance of Being Earnest_ actually... I am quite sure of it." She said in a contemplative tone, then suddenly realised how awkward the whole situation must have seemed to the four of them. „Really not the point here. Anyway, I hope you didn't bet for anything valuable, Xander..." Then she raised her hands in front of her in a sort of a defensive way, desperately wanting out of this talk: „Let's-eh- change the subject, shall we? I am sorry. The mood is already gloomy enough after what happened. I really just came to ask whether there is anything I could do, to help."

Giles was still looking at her and couldn't help but feel very sorry for her. She couldn't be older than 30 and had already been made widow twice, and without having lived on Hellmouth... No wonder she was looking for an escape from England. But then he told himself that he knew nothing of it and that it was her private business.

Willow asked her tentatively: „Are you sure you want to be part of this? It might be dangerous. And not exactly pleasant. You see Sunnydale has a record mortality rate for a reason." And while Helen was talking to the dark haired girl, assuring her that she would be glad to assist them any way she could, any way they would let her, having experiences with dangerous and unpleasant herself, Buffy walked over to where her watcher and Xander were still standing, and asked Giles in a silent, hardly audible voice so that Willow and Helen wouldn't hear. „Are you sure WE want her to be a part of this?"

Giles looked at her but didn't answer.

„I mean it is already wicked enough to keep the four of us safe, and now you told her about it..."

„She's a witch, Buffy. Maybe she could be of some use to us."

„But you said she had no magic left." Buffy argued, still not convinced that it was a good idea to involve the strange teacher in their dealings.

„I didn't say that. You weren't paying attention – again. I said she didn't have much of her magic left and that she is regaining her powers." He replied, the image of the poor appearance Helen gave the evening they talked about their "secret identities" came into his mind, how wearied she was by the few spells she had conjured.

„I agree with Giles on this." They both turned at Xander in surprise. „She could have some invaluable knowledge we could use, even if she can't witch around that much. We should keep her. You never know." Giles looked at him slighlty appalled that he should speak of her as of some kind of a pet or a stray cat they just found, but Buffy gave him a really nasty glare:

„You're just hoping you can get to that magic-school through her." She whispered to him annoyed. Xander grinned back at her. „Still, I think we've pretty much outvoted you, Buff."

It was agreed then that they would let her in or at least would not try to get rid of her if she wanted to help. Yet they all couldn't do much for the present until they knew more. Giles sent them all home for now and decided to do some preliminary research on the "fork-guy" himself although he had the feeling that there was more behind the murder than an ordinary vampire.

When Buffy stormed into the library the next morning she found Giles in a talk with Ms. McGregor, they were sitting at the middle table, drinking tea, large books spread in front of them.

„It would help if we at least knew what he looks like." Helen said.

„I know what he looks like." Buffy interrupted, walking towards them. „I had the pleasure last night."

Giles raised his head and frowned. „You were hunting last night? When you assured me you wouldn't?"

„Yes, I lied, I'm a bad person. Let's move on." Buffy answered impatiently, rolling her eyes.

„Did you see someone with a fork?" Giles stood up.

„More like a jumbo claw."

Giles and Helen exchanged concerned looks.

„Well, at least you're not hurt."

Buffy seemed to ignore the remark as she was obviously eager to tell more.

„And I saw something else. Something much more interesting than your average run-of-the-mill killer vampire."

„Oh?" Giles raised his eyebrows.

„You know Miss French? The teacher that's subbing for Dr. Gregory?"

A short dreamy smile appeared on Giles' face. „Yes, yes. She's lovely." Both women glanced at him, Buffy in disbelief, Helen with an indistinct sign of jealousy, a feeling she remembered only very remotely. He quickly turned away, cleaning his glasses. „In a common, extremely well proportioned way."

„Well, I'm chasing Claw Guy last night and Miss Well-Proportioned is heading home. The Claw Guy takes one look at her and runs screaming for cover."

This was all very disturbing news. Yet what Buffy had to report in the afternoon was even more alarming and it confirmed their decision to keep an eye on the substitute teacher.

„She turned her neck 180 degrees?" Giles asked.

„Yesss."

„Nothing human can do that."

„No, nothing human. There are some insects that can. Whatever she is, I'm gonna be ready for her."

„What are you going to do?"

„My homework." And Buffy stormed off to the back of the library to search for some books on insects.

Giles walked with an open book in his hands over to where Helen was sitting again, still trying to find something on the "Claw Guy", but now she looked deepened in thoughts. He watched her for a moment before asking: „Does that sound familiar to you?"

She came out of her thoughts. „No, no. Not really. I wonder though..."

„About what?"

„Well, whether she could be an animagus..."

„Animagus? You mean a shape-shifter?"

„Yes." She smiled. „I see you did the reading carefully."

„But if I understand it correctly if she were an animagus, she still couldn't turn her neck around in that way, could she?"

„No, I suppose not. I haven't heard of anyone who would possess the features or abilities of the animal in their human form as well..."

„Besides – if the assumption is right, as animagus she would be rather small, average insect-sized, this one however looks like it might be... about human size, judging by the size of the teeth." Giles said looking yet again at the unappetising pictures from the autopsy of Dr. Gregory.

„You're right." She smiled shyly at him, then turned back to her book.

_Sorry, if it's getting a little boring. For the present I have to repeat a lot for the actual series, but once I reach the point I want to get to, it should get better :) Or so I hope :) Please feel free to review, even anonymous, I'd be glad for any reactions._


	7. Chapter 7: Unpleasant Memories

Chapter 7

Unpleasant memories

_A/N: Here the next bit. Not happy with the title, I welcome any suggestions. I am also not sure whether to post more often and shorter chapters or the other way round... so, let me know what you prefer :) This one is quite short._

_And I just want to mention that I am not going to rephrase events and actions and plots from the actual series if not necessary – to not bore you – I'll just refer to it._

Giles took a seat opposite to her and continued his own reading.

Buffy soon returned and presented them with her presumption that they were indeed dealing with a giant praying mantis. And although they were all still rather hesitant in believing that Xander should have fallen for a giant bug, after Giles had called his former friend from Oxford who confirmed the existence of such a creature – and being himself its victim and living in a mental home, bound in a straitjacket – they, Willow especially, were very near to panic.

When they finally compared the teeth marks from the autopsy pictures with those of a praying mantis – both being identical in form, differing only in their size – and when Willow called Xander's home and had been told by his mother that he was gone doing a project at his teacher's house, they knew they had to act fast.

Buffy was trying to keep cool while giving orders: "Willow, see if you can get Miss French's address off the substitute rolls. Giles, get to the vid library and get a record of a bat sonar. I'll handle the armory."

On her way to the cage Buffy finally took notice of the history teacher and came to an abrupt halt. Helen was looking at her, unsure of whether to say something or to just wait.

"Right, you're.. here... too." Buffy said with a tensed smile. Helen looked at her and tried to smile back. "Yes. I-ah ... I'd like to help – if there's something I could do..."

"Eeh-... I don't know. Maybe... why don't you just stay here in case Xander or someone would call, or come, while we go find and – hopefully – slice Miss French-Mantis?" Buffy felt uncomfortable, she knew this must have sounded like she didn't really want her around – which was only partially true. But she thought that this was no time for schooling someone new into their "club", especially someone she for once didn't know at all, didn't know her ways, her strengths and weaknesses, her reactions or how much she could withstand, how she would do under pressure, and Buffy still wasn't sure how much or whether at all they could trust her and rely upon her. She decided to test all that on another occasion, not when one of her best friends seemed to be in mortal danger.

Helen nodded. "All right. I'll-eh... stay here then." She felt a little excluded on one hand, yet on the other she also could understand Buffy wanting her out of the way instead of getting involved too much just yet. After all in the group of the five of them the two women knew least of each other – they haven't even really spoken to each other properly. So Helen accepted the "task" to stay behind without any questions, especially when Giles also agreed that it would be best if she held her position in the library – just in case.

So Willow, Buffy and Giles left and Helen stayed alone in the library, with large piles of books laying on the table. _Well, I guess the work is done_, she thought. They had cleared the identity of Miss French, so there was nothing left for her to research on the matter.

Not really knowing what to do – she didn't really believe Xander would call, since he was probably tied up somewhere, hopefully not yet eaten by the She-Mantis – she started to clear away all the books. After maybe twenty minutes she was finished and getting more nervous. She made a pot of earl grey she found in Giles' office and drank a first cup. For a moment she was thinking of starting some of her own work like preparing lessons, but then she knew she wouldn't be able to concentrate anyway. She started pacing through the library with a tea cup in one hand, the other hand scrunching tightly her neckerchief.

Her mind began to wander, first around the events of that day, then sinking further back into the past few weeks, but constantly revolving around the one person, the tall tweedy librarian. She looked around almost expecting to see him behind his counter or in the cage sorting books, sitting at one of the tables, frowning over his reading or just standing and cleaning his glasses. At the same time and with a short longing sigh she thought that the library felt strangely unfamiliar, almost surreal without him being there, as if it was an entirely different place all of a sudden. Yes, she missed him there. No, she missed Him. _No! No such thing, I'm only worried about them, all of them. All four of them. That's all_. She started an argument with her inner voice as it became quite impertinent, suggesting that she might be taking more than just a casual interest in the librarian, thinking stubbornly: _Yes, maybe I like him, he's... he's a ... he's a kind person, a constant proof that the species of a gentleman did not become extinct just yet... which is a pleasant discovery... _He seemed to be very dedicated to his work too, and to care a lot about the three children. The way he looked at them – at Xander with some kind of resignation, of giving up, teasing and hassling, his possible caring for the boy carefully covered up with a proper portion of annoyance, at Willow with admiration and respect, yet also with confusion, as if he couldn't always get her, and at Buffy sometimes with similar incomprehension of her ways, but also with sort of a fatherly fondness, when he seemed to worry about her...

And then she liked how mysterious he appeared to be, it kept attracting her. She liked his calmness, for in her experience the quiet ones were the most passionate, to her the most interesting people – the more quiet, the less she could resist their charms.

There was a difference in the way they both were approaching each other. Giles subconsciously chose what one might call a "rational" way – by asking himself many questions about her considering her being there, her purpose, her goals, when he thought about her. He wanted to learn about her, to find things out, to get to know her through "reason" if you want, to establish some general, practical facts first. Who was she? Where did she come from? Where did her loyalties lie? What was she doing before? How did she lose her magic? How could she use her magic? How much did she know about demons and how would she be able to deal with them? Would she scream and melt down if she saw a Lagos-demon or would she fight it no matter what?

Helen took just as subconsciously as him a different path. She always made an emotional approach, based on the sentiments, the feelings and sometimes on instincts, which rarely failed her in the past. She used to bond or she was learning to know over her emotions, how she felt around him – how he made her feel, what kind of impression he made. She would watch his ways and manners, his movements, listen to how he spoke, how his voice would sound in different situations, how he would talk to each of the three kids, how he talked to her, she would look out for how his touch felt, when their hands would accidentally brush each other, and watch how he touched the books, how warm his smile could be, how he smiled in the mornings and how in the afternoons when she entered the library, these were things she would ingest first rather than his "profession" or his actual dealings.

So contemplating over him in this manner, she was still pacing the library up and down, when perhaps two hours later, around ten, Giles returned at last. She turned around as she heard the footsteps and hurried towards him, feeling a sudden urge to embrace him. But she didn't. They met in the middle of the hall, standing close opposite to each other, her eyes widened, full with questions of worry, his expression tired, but otherwise relaxed, one hand in his pocket, the other holding casually his coat over his shoulder.

"It's done." He said in a calm and assuring voice, making clear that there was nothing left to worry about.

"Did you... is it dead?"

"Yes. Buffy sliced it, Xander destroyed the offsprings."

"Is he alright then?"

"Yes. They were both, he and the other boy, unharmed. Though it was a serious blow to their... manhood..." Giles smiled, recalling the reactions of Xander and Blayne when they told them that the Mantis was only interested in virgins.

Helen blushed a little, then turned around and pointed at the table.

"I made tea earlier, you can perhaps drink a cup with me and tell me some more, if you like...?"

Giles looked at the table, then said "Thanks," and disappeared for a moment in his office to put away his coat and get himself a cup.

He returned soon and they both sat down at the large table, when he told her about the events of the night from the point they had left the library, how they went looking for Miss French's house, how the address was wrong and how Miss French actually was a completely different person, how they finally found, with the involuntary help of the Claw-Vampire the right housing of the beast, up to the point when Buffy finally killed it and Xander smashed its eggs.

"Merlin's scarf, that... must have been some sight." Helen said amazed, not quite sure whether she wished to have been there and seen it all or whether she was rather happy to have been left behind. Giles caught her thoughtful look.

"Please, don't be mad at Buffy because she didn't want you to come. She is careful, when it comes to civilians. Which is good. A slayer usually works alone, you see, merely under the guidance of her watcher." He tried to justify Buffy's decision. "It was rather a coincidence that caused the two being involved – in case of Willow I'd say a very happy, useful and enriching one, in case of Xander... well, let's-eh be silent at this point... Buffy saved them from a couple of vampires upon her first school day," he added.

She nodded and took a sip of her tea cup. "No, I understand that. Besides, she doesn't know me, I guess it's only natural to have some reservations, especially when she has to do... eh-what she has to do..." She frowned a little, still not entirely clear on what exactly Buffy's "work" included.

"Yes. On the other hand – as I tried to point out to her – we are glad for your assistance. After all how often does it happen that a Slayer could rely on a help of a real witch?" He said again with this sheepish smile and she was staring at it in fascination as if hoping that she could prolong it with her gaze. She hardly heard what he said. Then his face turned more serious.

"I-eh, I've been meaning to ask you – you ... haven't told anyone about us?"

For a second Helen looked confused. _Us? There is a _us_? Already? When did that happen? Not that I'm complaining... Stop it!_

"Buffy being a slayer, and the others?"

_Oh, the other _us.

"You didn't mention any of it to someone of ... your people? Or your Ministry..."

"Oh. No, to no one."

He looked relieved, but something was still occupying him.

"The thing with the council is still bothering you, isn't it?" He didn't need to answer, she could tell from his look, that it was so. "Well, they might not be active anymore, maybe their contacts go back in times long before you took the job from them... I mean, you've been working as the watcher only for a couple of months, maybe their dealings with the Ministry ceased long before that..." She was trying to appease him, to persuade him, that it might not be important at all.

"Being a watcher is not one of those... "jobs" one would apply for, you see, it's a ...a destiny, your fate, which you're designed for a long time before you actually get to act as one and before you're assigned a slayer to train..." He began to explain, to at least outline to her the nature of his position, wanting to leave the subject of the council behind. For now.

"Oh." She was tempted to ask him, why he, when it obviously bothered him so much, didn't just call this council chaps and demand a direct statement about their relationship with the wizarding world, but she rather decided not to. He must have had his reasons, surely otherwise he would long ago have done so. "So are you also a "chosen one" then? Like Buffy?" He laughed.

"Not quite. But – I had been told about my-eh destiny" – he said the last word in a rather bitter tone "when I was a child, I was ten years old. And since then I was being prepared for the future task." He raised his eyes from his tea to meet hers, which right now were peering at him with very eager interest that he hadn't seen in them before.

They were silent for a moment, Helen thought about what he just said, and tried to imagine a little boy in a little tweed suit, with large glasses and an earnest, far too mature expression on his face, sitting at a table in an intimidating giant library of some old English mansion, surrounded by huge hills of old, dusty books, reading Latin texts on vampires and slayers. Though the image seemed so believable, she was still wondering...

"Have you never wanted to do something else? To abandon your calling and to cease being a watcher? Never longed for another occupation? Being just ... a librarian for instance?" She asked, and although it was one of her ground principles not to pry, this was far too much interesting a topic as that she could leave it.

He smiled at his teacup. "Oh, I didn't want to become a watcher in the first place. I had very clear ideas about my future at the age of ten." He looked at her with all earnestness. "I desired to become a fighter pilot."

Within fractions of a second Helen saw in her head another image, of a nowadays-Giles, in his large tweed suit, with glasses, a tensed expression on his face, sitting in a cockpit, frowning at an instruction manual of some fighter aircraft, swearing _Bloody_s over the gibberish text of it which was written in some odd code language that wasn't Latin.

"But, there was no other way for me to go. As I should learn many years later yet again, this was what I was supposed to be doing. I don't question it anymore."

The memories of his wild days as the Ripper came into his mind. Untamed parties with his "friends", when they practised magic, summoned some invidious demons and played them off against each other, or worse, commissioned them to haunt some innocent, just so they'd have a little fun and or simply kill off a boring time, until one day... He frowned slightly. He had been suppressing these recollections for over twenty years now, and though it had been hard work, he did so quite successfully. He was an entirely different person now, so he hoped, trying not to think about whether there still may be some little part of the Ripper deep in him somewhere, not active, but dormant and possibly to awake when some invisible trigger would be pulled... Yet he hoped he would never have to deal with that part of his past again.

He continued. "I've accepted it, as had my father before me and my grandmother before him, and ... yes, it is in its way a fulfilling "job" – I don't see it that way anymore, it's just what I do, who I am. Though we hardly ever experience any gratitude from anyone, still, we are...," he paused. The words _We are making the world a better place to live_ seemed effusive to him and exaggerated, not to mention rather corny, besides he wasn't sure he believed that really. "Let's-eh say we are reducing the-eh... amount of the evil in our dimension." He finished the sentence, glaring now into his empty cup.

Again she was nodding slowly, looking at him, finding him more and more fascinating with every word he said.

"Have you?" He asked suddenly, a gentle smile on his face.

She didn't understand. "Have I what?"

"Ever wished not to be a witch? To be a... what's the word you use... " He rubbed his forehead to remember, "... a muggle? To not have your magic?" He asked in his gentle velvetian voice.

Helen blushed. She didn't think her interrogation would backfire in this way. She looked at her hands that were holding her half full tea cup on her lap. A sudden wave of panic overcame her, but she managed to stay calm.

"No", she lied finally, saying it slowly, but in a firm tone, then raised defiantly her eyes to meet his.

Giles wrinkled his forehead a little. He had noticed how she stiffened at his question and he didn't understand it.

She looked at her watch and stood up, smiling nervously. "Oh, it's-eh... very late. I think I'll better get going home."

He still had the slightly concerned expression on his face, but then said: "Yes, it's been a long day."

"Yes." She collected their teacups and washed them, while Giles packed his things. Couple of minutes later they left the library together. She didn't say another word to him and he had the feeling that something was wrong.

In front of the school, Helen made a halt. "So, eh, I'll walk from here. Have a nice evening and..."

"Walk? Are you sure? It's rather late, and ..."

She smiled. "But sure after tonight it's safe enough. You killed the Claw-Vampire, and the Mantis..."

"Regarding that one might say it's safe-r, but Sunnydale at night is very far from safe... I could drive you home, my car is over there."

She shook her head in decline and was about to turn her back to him and to leave.

"Wait!" He said, and wanted to protest once more, to insist at least to accompany her, but when she turned her face to him again, something about it made him drop the effort, and he didn't want to be too obtrusive. She seemed anxious to leave. To take leave of him. He just hoped that no vampire would sweep the streets tonight. After all Giles didn't know whether her magic would be strong enough to fight them. In resignation he finally wished her "Good night then," and then watched her walking away for a while before he went to his car and drove home.


	8. Chapter 8: Of nightly walks, dreams

Chapter 8

Of nightly walks, dreams and some jokes

_A/N: The title sucks I know. However here's the next chapter, rather Helen-centered this time, and I also had to change the rating because of some... stuff :) I am not 100% sure if it's right or if a "T-rating" would be sufficient, hmmm, so please let me know, what you think, I lack experience here._

_Hope you like and enjoy._

Helen was walking the now quite and dark streets of Sunnydale. Her house was rather far from school, she would have to walk perhaps forty minutes, and it was situated at the dark end of a one-way street. The way there led through several alleys that were now very poorly lit.

It was chilly, but it felt good being outside and she was grateful for the long walk ahead of her. It would help her sort out and order her thoughts, she hoped. Her mind was very agitated and uneasy after the talk with Giles. She was angry with herself that she led their conversation into a direction where he finally asked her... _How stupid of me! Damn it! I should have seen that coming!_ She shrugged, pulled the belt of her coat tighter and sped up, hoping in vain that her rush walk would make it impossible to think of it any further.

It didn't work. She felt that what she has been fearing most, was now happening. She got too close, gave away too much, and so entirely against her principles of keeping reservation, of staying away from people she got herself involved with the group around the slayer. _I can't deal with this_, she thought. _The one thing... Why on Earth did he have to ask that? Well, perhaps if You hadn't been so inquisitive about his own past in the first place... _Her inner voice clearly put the blame in the right place.

An advertent observer however would notice that what was really bothering her was not the fact that Giles took interest in her, far from it. After all she herself hasn't been exactly avoiding his company during the past few weeks. On the contrary it was her who went to the library, it was her who offered them her help, he wasn't asking for it.

No, it was that precise something from her past, the one thing she has been neither able nor ready nor willing to deal with so far. The reason why she finally had left England, because she couldn't stand their glances and whispers...

She noticed a sound coming from somewhere around her and she raised her head, taking the stare of the pavement, her thoughts interrupted. There, couple of meters in front of her a girl or possibly a young woman was sitting on the ground, with her back turned to Helen, her blond head sunken in her hands, she was sobbing. Helen slowed her walk a little and her hand reached for her wand as she was approaching the stranger. When she was almost with her, she took her wand out of her pocket, looked at the surroundings, but couldn't detect anything ominous.

"Eh-, excuse me, may I-eh... do you need any help...?" She spoke to the girl. The sobbing stopped and Helen frowned. There was something odd...

Then it happened, all very quickly, within seconds. The girl turned around and jumped up, her hand grasped Helen's neck and she was smiling at her in an evil sort of way when her face suddenly transformed into a very distorted, wrinkly and beast-like shape. Then Helen, after having recuperated from the first shock pointed her wand at her and mumbled _Stupefy_ for the second time in Sunnydale. Again just like the last time couple of weeks ago the wand gave a short wave of blue sparks but nothing happened, except that the young woman lowered her grip now in astonishment and Helen stepped away immediately, taking advantage of the woman's surprise. They were both staring at each other, Helen rather scared and confused, the blonde with an amused and somewhat delighted expression over her face – as far as Helen could interpret the deformed features -, which caused the young witch to worry even more.

"You're a-"

"You're a-"

"-vampire!"

"-witch!"

They said at the same time, the contraposition of how they felt about their new findings was well audible in their different tones. Helen was still pointing her wand at the vampire, her hand shaking a little. The vampire was smiling now, walking slowly towards her, while she was stepping back.

"Oh, but this is a pleasant surprise!" It drawled with a bright grin. "I can't remember when was the last time I tasted a wizard's blood... But it must be decades now, centuries perhaps? ... Ooh, how I used to love it... made me all high... And now with you - here, oh, this is too easy..." The vampire said. Then it stopped and looked at Helen's wand, but its smile didn't vanish, in fact the pointing wooden stick obviously bemused it even more.

"Hah, ts-ts, obviously you're new here."

Helen shook her head a little, she didn't understand what the vampire was trying to say, and she was getting more and more horrified, the terror started to cloud her reason: Instead of disapparating quickly, she tried to knock the vampire out:

"_Impedimenta!_" She shouted, yet again, apart from some blue sparks, the expected effect didn't occur.

The vampire made a smug "Hmpf" and with a rush move it kicked the wand out of Helen's hand. It landed on the ground with a silent tapping noise.

The disfigured face of the woman-vampire was now only a few inches away from her own. "Just wanted to make sure that my lunch won't disappear..." It whispered. "Not that you could do any harm to me... You can't fight us here... But, right, I guess this is all rather useless news to you now anyway..." Its mouth was now at Helen's ear. She was beyond panic, paralysed, and didn't know what she could do. What she wanted to do. _It would be quick... finally over after all... it shouldn't hurt too much... or so the books said..._ The vampire cut off her thoughts again. "I am wondering what the master would say to a nice warm cup of a witch's blood... But then I don't feel like sharing tonight..." Helen could already feel the cold teeth on her neck, when a sudden rustle could be heard and the vampire froze.

A man's voice said: "Let her go, Darla."

The woman backed off a little but didn't let go of her prey. She looked at the man and her expression, if possible, became even more delighted than before when she was examining Helen.

"Oh, Angel, your timing is perfect." She grabbed Helen's neck again and pulled her in front of herself as to show and offer her to the man. "You won't turn your back on this one, I'm sure... Remember London? 1806?"

"What are you talking about?" The man asked a little impatiently.

Darla laughed. "It's a witch... Come on, have a taste, I didn't want to share, but... with you... I would... You must hunger for this more than me after all those years without even human blood... Remember what it felt like? The sensation of a wizard's blood? The inebriation? The power-trip?"

Angel wasn't answering.

"Don't you want to feel it again?" She asked in a flirty undertone, then bowed her head to Helen's neck once more.

"Let her go, I said." He replied at last in a low, yet bidding voice.

"Or what? You're gonna take me?" Again the coquettish touch in her question, and to Helen's surprise, the woman let go of her and pushed her away, walking now slowly towards the man, who stood in the dark so that she couldn't see him properly, but his face appeared to be human.

He addressed her in the same quiet way: "Leave. Go home now. And hurry."

She was still confused, didn't understand what was happening, what that was all about and was unsure if they wouldn't both jump at her the moment she'd turn her back to them. Slowly she went to the spot where her wand fell, bent to pick it and ran away as fast as she could. She hoped they wouldn't follow her, the two useless spells did exhaust her and she didn't want to disapparate again unless it was absolutely necessary. But nobody seemed to be after her and couple of minutes later she reached her front-door at last. Once more she looked over her shoulder to see nothing but the dark, empty alley.

She unlocked her door and breathed out heavily. She threw her bag at the small dresser in the anteroom, then entered the living room and stood there for a moment, her hands rubbing her head, trying to calm down, when an acerb voice from behind her asked.

"Who is he?"

She got so scared that she almost thought she would get a heart attack after all, after surviving vampires, hyena people, Hogwarts... She turned around to see a slightly blurred face with a stern look staring at her from the fire burning in the fireplace. Shock changed to anger, anger to relief and that finally to relaxation within seconds, as she came over and lapsed on the sofa in front of the fire. She had completely forgotten that today was the second Friday of the month and she should have been at home hours ago...

"So?" Grinning George Weasley asked again. "Please tell me there is some lucky lad who let you forget all about our monthly rendez-vous? The others are long gone by the way, couldn't wait, Hermione has some exams tomorrow or whatever, Harry's got an appointment some place... We didn't think you'd come anymore... So, where were you?"

Only now she realised how very tired she was. "I am so glad to see you, you can't imagine..."

"Your nose."

"What?"

"You're bleeding."

"Oh." Her hand ran to her nose and indeed almost immediately she could feel the liquid pouring out of her nose and soon she already had the metallic taste in her mouth. She got up. "Sorry, I'll be back..." She returned with a vet handkerchief, pressing it with one hand on her neck and sat again on the sofa.

"Did you cast a spell?" George asked, surprised a little at the fact that she should need magic in the new place.

"I did. Not that it had the slightest effect..." She said ironically.

"But why?"

After a moment of hesitation she finally told him about her encounter with the vampires and that she couldn't fight them, and about the odd remark of Darla's that she couldn't harm them _there_. They both wondered about its possible meanings.

"I could ask Hermione, maybe she'd know something. I have no idea of vampires. Can you usually fight them?" He asked.

"No, I mean, I don't know, I'm actually sure you can, I read something about a battle between vampires and wizards some two hundred years ago, in one of the books Hermione sent me over Christmas. It said nothing about wizards not being able to hurt them... Besides she emphasized the _there_ as if it had something to do with this place..." She furrowed her eyebrows and remembered Giles leaning at her desk in the classroom, telling her about the Hellmouth.

"Listen, you should go to bed, you look terrible, a piece of wreck." George said matter-of-factly. "Why don't I come over tonight and we can talk some more. Can I apparate?"

She was almost sleeping and answered rather absent-mindedly: "No. It's too far and unsafe. Take a portkey. There should be one at the Ministry, that takes you to Fort Worth and then from there you can apparate to Sunnydale, I guess, that should do. You have the address?" She yawned.

"Yes." George smiled. "Now go. See you in a few hours."

"Mhm." She nodded, gave him a wave and watched as he finally disappeared. Then she went upstairs to her bedroom and fell asleep almost the instance her body met her covers.

She woke up in a strange mood. It was around midday. She felt relaxed, almost happy, an odd feeling of fulfilment spread through her, though she didn't know the cause of it. She was smiling for no reason at all. When she finally came across the reflection of her sunshiny face starring cheeky at her from the mirror, she frowned and tried to remember why she should be in a spirit this good. She thought of the events of the previous night and day and scowled at her mirrored picture. _Vampires, that was damn close, the woman almost bit me... Darla... Angel..._ And before that... she was talking to Giles- _Giles!_

She froze. Her face went from a scared, panicked, hurt over dreamy, blissful, desirous back to sad, almost tortured expression.

_She had sex with Giles! _

_They were in Vienna, secret agents or something like that, both dressed up in black suits, they were staying in some conspiracy apartment of a secret agency that was employing them..._

She walked downstairs, through her house, recalling the bits of the dream, took a glass of water in the kitchen...

_She could still feel his lips pressed gently upon hers, the tightness and safeness of his embrace, his desire..._

She arrived in the living room and sat down on her sofa.

_They were kissing for a good while, he pressed her against a wall, they couldn't get enough of each other. It felt almost like hunger, yet with every kiss she got hungrier and wanted more, and... Gosh, his lips had something so delightful about them. Or was it because she hadn't been kissed for such a long time? She couldn't remember... Oh, it was soo good. It was one of those few and rare moments where you wish that the time would stop, knowing that it can't, that it won't get any better ever and that you could and would do this forever. That's how wonderful it felt. And what was so amazing about it, was the fact that she somehow knew in that moment, that he wanted her, desired her just as much as she wanted him. _

_After a good while they both let themselves fall to the ground, on a carpet in the living room of the unfamiliar apartment, she was under him, he laid on her, but she didn't seem to mind the weight, no, the only thing she cared about was to pull his face to hers again and to get lost in yet another passionate wave of longing kisses._

_There was something different about him to how she knew him for real, she thought. He was almost wild, yet his lips were unexpectedly soft, it caused her such a pleasure, such a delight, to kiss them, to press them upon her own..._

_She didn't know whose hands left their faces first and began to wander down their bodies, she only noticed her own reaching for the zip of his black trousers... The next thing she could remember – cruel as mornings are, they won't let you recall every detail anymore – was him being inside her, filling her out, in a complete perfect match. _

_If the kisses already sent her far beyond the realm of happy, then there were no words that would allow her to describe accurately the sensation she was experiencing with every single, astonishingly gentle, slow and yes, somehow tender thrust of his body into hers, that were each so opposed to his vehement, hungry kisses, as if – being finally inside of her, he had calmed down, satisfied the hunger, and now wanted it to last, to savour this state as long as possible._

_Once more she couldn't remember whether she had ever made love like this in her real life before. But she doubted it..._

"You're still in your pyjama?"

Helen jumped up. There in the door to her living room was leaning the read-headed tall grinning George Weasley, pretending to be highly scandalised by her appearance. Helen closed her eyes, exhaling relieved. "You! I... I didn't think you would make it..."

"Why not? What? Was I supposed to get off in Fort Worth, buy me a Texan cowboy hat and enter a rodeo?"

"No." She frowned at the bizarre image in her head. "On second thoughts... why didn't you?"

"Pff", he made a sniffy noise. "Me? Please! I am an English man, I have my principles."

She glanced at him, knowing better.

Then his mouth widened into the brightest smile she had ever seen, only the Weasley-twins could smile like that, and he presented her with two identical brown leather hats, which he was keeping in his hands behind his back till then. "Ta-daaa. I couldn't resist. And I've already thought of some ideas on my way here how to improve them... Maybe we could open a store of Wizard Wheezes in Texas... I bet they could use some of..." He stopped noticing her shaking her head in amusement. "What?"

She just smiled. He came over to her and placed one of the hats on her head so that she couldn't see anything. "That's better."

"Seriously." She said, after she had lifted the hat above her eyes. "I didn't think you would go into the trouble of actually coming here, George, I hope-"

"Hey! I said I'd come. You looked like you could use some cheering up... and when you threw yourself on the floor whining and crying and started the embarrassing begging-"

"Hey!" She said indignantly, but she knew he was teasing. "I wasn't begging..."

"And I wanted to see your place... And now I am finally here, it's late evening and I find you, in your jim-jams, all dirty, hair unwashed, looking disgusting, not even brushed her teeth... Honestly..." He shook his head.

She had to laugh. "Ok, ok. Just give me a moment. I'll have a shower. I'll be ready in half an hour. Go to the kitchen, take whatever you want, or sit here, or play piano... Just..." She was about to go upstairs when she turned around once more and glared at him warningly. "Just DON'T do anything, no installing of ANY kind of your jokes. Please, this is my house."

He gave her an outraged look and put a hand on his heart.

"I am aggrieved. I truly am. After all the pain I went through to come here, and you are accusing me of such entirely unprecedented-"

"All right, all right, I get it. Just, don't... touch anything."

An hour later they were both sitting at the kitchen table, talking. George supplied her with some news from the others, apparently they were all rather well, continuing their studies or apprenticeships, all busy in a pleasant way. "And I am running the shop, as always."

"Alone?"

"No." He grinned again. "I've got some help now."

"Really?" She asked amused. "Angelina?"

"Yes. She is highly qualified and very efficient," He caught her raised eyebrows. "when it comes to her job." He added.

"Been on another date yet?"

"Tomorrow. We are supposed to go to a cinema, to see a film. I'm very excited. Moving pictures, never seen that before ever, must be hilarious." He twinkled at her, pointing at an issue of Daily Prophet laying on her coffee table, with a large animated photograph of the Minister of Magic shaking hands with some other wizard. She grinned now.

"But let me ask you a question." He continued. "I've been thinking about it the whole day. Is there something else? ... You see, I find it an extremely unusual coincidence that you should have asked Hermione for some vampire books and hardly two weeks later you almost get sucked out by one." He looked at her with that glance a teacher would put on his face to make a pupil feel guilty about not having done the homework.

"Yes." She said, but was still reluctant of telling him everything. After all she sort of promised to Giles she wouldn't. On the other hand, if there was a person she was sure wouldn't babble it out on every corner, it was, strangely enough, George. _To hell with it,_ she thought finally.

"Have you ever heard of the Slayer?" She asked, in resignation.

"A slayer?" George stared at her, obviously without the faintest idea.

"And if it was a medieval inventor of nasty pranks and silly jokes... " She sighed. "...you probably still wouldn't have heard of him either, 'cause it would mean to open a book."

George pretended to be offended. "Are you quite done? So who is he, this slayer?"

"It's a she. A girl." And so she retold him the short story about the super-powerful Slayer and her Watcher, fighting against the vampires since centuries, those being very common in Sunnydale because of the Hellmouth. When she finished, George was hanging on her lips to hear more.

"A Slayer, huh? Sounds very-eh- exciting, spicy!" He said grinning. "'she have a boyfriend?" He asked casually and she laughed.

"I don't know. Don't you have a date with Angelina?" She shook her head, bemused. Then her face got earnest as she thought of Giles. As George kept asking she finally also told him about the infamous chat with the Watcher and about _The Question_. George nodded thoughtfully. "And all I wanted was a quiet life here, no action, no drama, no-eh... you know, nothing but peace and boredom." She said at last.

"Really?" George asked incredulously, and Helen raised her eyes to meet his. "Right, you wanted peace and quiet. Is that why you offered them your help against this... this giant bug? You could've just stayed away, keep your head down." She looked at him, slightly hurt by his words, but she saw his eyes smiling in this _Don't-I-know-you-better-sometimes_-way.

"I-eh..." She didn't know what to answer.

"And don't tell me you did so only because you find the Watcher so hot," now she looked shocked and blushed, "'cause I don't believe that was the only reason."

She sighed. "Whatever. Let's leave it. I just... don't know what to do now..."

_A/N: Weell, that's it for now. I apologize if it was a little cheesy, being not a very experienced writer I found the dream very hard to describe in a proper way, but then, I guess dreams always are... So, feel free to let comments how you found it all :) And should it stay M-rated?_


	9. Chapter 9: Secrets & Further Revelations

Chapter 9

Secrets and revelations

_AN: Though it's not really sooo important, I should clear up the timeline here a little in case you wonder later on or try to count the years. Upon starting to write this story I had to – to make it all fit for the purposes here – adjourn the time of Buffy for exactly three years (first season so taking place 1999/2000 instead of 1996/97). It's not really of any importance in the Buffyverse, and I had to keep the timeline of Harry Potter – hence the difference of three years arose. You'll also find one HP-canon violence here, but I hope it's not too bad, I'll explain later :)._

George stayed for a couple of more hours, till late evening, before he took the same way he came back to England. They talked most of the time about different, less serious things. He always knew how to cheer a person up with amusing stories about funny encounters with strange customers in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, so that after he'd left and Helen had gone to bed, she felt a little easier than before, her mind was more carefree, but she worried that the George-effect would not last too long, but would fade away very soon. This had proven right the next day, when she could think of nothing else but Giles and the vampires Darla and Angel and of whether or not she should tell the former about the latter.

The unpleasant talk with him already took away her courage of approaching him any further, but it was only the dream she had last night, that made it unimaginable for her to face him at all. She was rather afraid, what she might do when she saw him – after having shared such intimate moments with him, she felt somewhat differently about him now and though she realised that it wasn't based on a real experience, such feelings were very hard to go away, despite the fact.

Her attitude towards dreams has always been rather that one that after all, although it only happened in her mind, it still had happened, it still was an experience she had, she had the memories of it, albeit a little blurred by now and sketchy, she remembered the emotions it brought up, the mood, shortly – it had left some inerasable traces, some permanent marks at her (in mind or heart or wherever). The only difference to reality was that he did not share these memories or this experience. So, to sum it up, her dilemma was as follows: How could she face him, after being aware on one hand, that he made the best love to her she'd ever experienced, only two nights ago, that he – without exaggeration – gave her the happiest time she's ever had – or at least as far as she remembered –, knowing on the other hand that he himself did not have any recollections of it?

She spent the whole Sunday between sinking back into the dream, anxious not to forget a single moment she could remember, and poring over what she should do, most importantly about the two vampires. In a vain attempt to distract herself a little she sat at her piano and began to play. For a brief time it was working, the concentrating on the notes and on the right placing of her fingers occupied her mind just enough to keep any other thoughts shut out. Then she started to play that one particular piece from Satie, repeating it over and over again without realizing, and only by the twelfth round she noticed that her fingers were playing but her eyes had been staring at the title of this favourite little piece of hers – _Son binocle _– and – very much according to that – what she had been seeing in her head was Giles, dressed in an elegant suit from the 20ties, cleaning his own _binocle_, with his white handkerchief, frowning and blinking a little, then raising his eyes to meet hers, suddenly smiling, those charming irresistible wrinkles appearing in the corners of his eyes, then putting his _binocle_ down, placing it on the table in the library... wait, no, it wasn't the library, it was the coffee-table in the strange Vienna-apartment, and without his _binocle_ he was approaching her now, taking her face into his hands, pressing a passionate kiss on her lips... She closed her eyes and with a loud bang shut the piano.

Something in her head kept exhorting her that she should tell Giles about the vampires, that he probably would want to know. Another voice, the one more scared and thinking more of herself than of anything else, was trying to persuade her, that it wasn't that important and that it's not her problem, that's for him and Buffy to take care of, they seemed to be well in charge and capable... she remembered him mentioning that they often did patrol at night, or Buffy did alone, she would certainly sort it out, she's after all the Slayer.

The scared part of her finally won over the other, the more rational one, and so in the following couple of weeks she has been successfully avoiding the library including the librarian, though every morning, full with remorse, she carefully and afraid read the newspaper, hoping that no suspicious vampirey-like deaths would make her regret the decision of not telling them about her encounter with Darla and Angel.

The talk he had with Helen, kept occupying Giles's mind on the other hand just as much. He was confused of her reaction back then but couldn't think of any reason why she should behave the way she did. There was no offence in his question, and yet... He somehow wasn't really surprised when a week passed, and another one, and she had not come to the library once. More and more questions were rising up in his head. For now most of all he was eager to find out what kind of a relation was there between the council and the wizarding world and why he hadn't been let in on it. After having spent several days with futile thoughts, speculations and brooding about the matter, he finally decided. About midday he picked up the phone in the library and dialled the number of a close friend. Well, to be honest, it was the only grown-up person he would call his friend at all.

"Robson. Hello?" An old man's voice on the other line said.

"James? Hello, James. Eh- it's-eh, it's Giles. Rupert Giles. I hope I'm not disturbing you?"

"Rupert! No, not at all. What a nice surprise! How are you doing? I haven't heard from you since how many months now. How is the new slayer?" The older man asked in a cordial tone.

"Eh, thank you, she's-eh,... she's doing well, quite well, she's ... somewhat difficult when it comes to discipline, but-eh... otherwise... technically at least, she's very capable."

Robson laughed into the phone, as if he knew exactly what Giles had to indulge with Buffy.

"But-eh, it's not her I am calling about. I-eh... I wanted to ask you something and you are the only one I can trust."

"Oh? Now you're sounding mysterious, Rupert. What is it?"

"I-eh, don't quite know how to start... it's a little delicate matter... What do you know about contacts between the Council and the Ministry of Magic?" Giles shot out and closed his eyes for a moment, sure that his friend would either laugh at him or politely ask him whether he's been feeling alright, thinking he's gone mad.

None of that happened. Robson clearly was a little surprised, but not _having-no-idea-what-you-are-talking-about-_surprised.

"Well, not much, not of late anyway. Since the battle of Hogwarts, if I am not mistaken. There isn't much going on at present, I suppose. But then, Quentin does not share everything." The last thing he said with a very slight touch of sarcasm that did not escape Giles.

"But you know of the existence of such relations?"

Now Robson was confused. "What do you mean?"

"You are generally aware that those contacts exist?"

"Why, yes, I am." He answered, startled. "What are you trying to say, Rupert?"

"You see, until a couple of weeks ago, I myself had no idea about any such relations. In fact I wasn't even aware that the wizarding world, that Hogwarts was more than a sheer fantasy my mother used to tell me about for a bed-time story..."

For a brief moment there was silence. Then Robson asked in disbelief: "They didn't tell you till now?"

"They didn't tell me anything at all. I found out on another way."

Giles told his friend about the new colleague who happened to be a witch, but asked him to keep the information for himself at any cost, which he promised to do.

"A witch in Sunnydale, that's certainly rather intriguing. Did she mention why she's there?"

"No. Well, yes, she left England after the-eh... Battle of Hogwarts, but she claims to be here by a coincidence, more or less. From what she told me, her people, the-eh Ministry had some non-specific records, probably relating to the Hellmouth, so they'd suggested to her to take a look, but without any engagements or official commitments."

"Hmm. Interesting."

"Still, what strikes me as a little-eh... indecorous... is that the Council didn't find it necessary to tell me about it. I am the Watcher, and that kind of information seems highly crucial..." Giles was trying to keep his voice low and calm, but the trace of anger was still audible.

"Yes, I agree, it is odd. But then, on the other hand we never had any particular dealings with them, Rupert..." The older man tried to appease him.

"You-they didn't? Or you just don't happen to know of any such...? You said yourself that Quentin doesn't tell everything. How can you be sure then?"

"I don't know." Robson said in a contemplative tone. "I really don't know. It is a slight blow, to myself as well, I admit..."

"Exactly. How am I supposed to trust them when they obviously don't trust me with an important stuff like that? Most of all I'd like to know – simply – why? Why wouldn't they want me to know? Why wasn't I told? I don't understand, and it does disquiet me quite a lot, it's a very unsettling feeling, James... What reasons did they have?"

They both remained silent for a moment, then Giles went forth. "I was rather hoping you might tell me, but you seem to be just as surprised..."

"Yes, indeed. I'm sorry, Rupert, I can't help you with that. Knowing Quentin there will be a reason, albeit an obscure, dark and dubious one, but there will be one why he decided to keep this from you."

"Right."

"I don't know what you intend to do, but... I'd advise you, at least for now, to keep it that way. Do not tell them that you know. Now You are in an advantage, knowing something They don't, I'd think it perhaps would be for the best if it stays that way."

"Yes, thank you, you're probably right... It makes me angry though! I wonder what other, relevant, things there are they are not telling me – telling us – about!"

"Yes, I must admit, it's spreading a wave of discomfort through one's mind... I'll keep my eyes and ears open, but, you know, since I was more or less forced to retire, they don't let me in on every session."

"I know. Thank you, James. And..."

"Don't worry, you can rely upon my discretion."

Giles smiled, a little appeased now he had shared his concerns with a friendly soul. "I know that too. I wanted to ask you one other favour though..."

Another week has passed and Helen didn't dare to go to the library, although she really had to give Giles back his vampire books by now. She felt like the last coward, when after a sophomore history class she managed to detain Willow and Xander and asked them politely if they could return Giles the said volumes. The girl wondered a little, but nodded, Xander took the books from the desk and they both headed towards the library where they were supposed to meet Buffy anyway.

Arrived in the library Xander threw the books on the front table, then sat himself on a chair, opposite to Giles, who had been reading some paper.

"What's that?" Giles asked, frowning at the books, before he recognized them as his own.

"Miss McGregor asked us to return those to you." Willow answered, shyly and with a slightly devastated expression, as if she felt bad because of it all.

"Oh." Giles smiled tensely, then stood up, took off his glasses and began to clean them. He felt disappointment coming somewhere from his stomach upwards.

Meanwhile Buffy and Xander started wondering why Miss McGregor wouldn't show up in the library anymore, despite her being so eager to help them at first.

"Maybe she was too wigged out by the Mantis." Buffy suggested. "Or..." She turned to Giles and glared at him. "'fess up, Giles, you finally managed to scare her off with your books." She nodded towards the pile on the table, which Xander just put there. Giles smiled, but rather forced and absentmindedly.

"Anyway, she didn't strike me much as a daredevil, it was just probably all too much action for her. Which is understandable, when one's not used to it..." Buffy continued in a casual tone.

"I don't think that was the problem." Giles said slowly, frowning and cleaning his glasses yet again, he pointed at a copy of a strange newspaper, laying at the table. They all came closer to have a better look at it, but after a second, all three of them jumped back, as they saw the persons on the front page moving hastily across the photograph they were at.

"What was that?" Xander asked irritated.

Willow was the first who dared to approach the scary paper again. She was staring in fascination at the moving black and white photograph. Giles looked bemused at her, having experienced the same sensation only few hours ago. Buffy and Xander too dared to come closer. They were all gazing at a "Daily Prophet", an odd looking newspaper, dated from May 4th almost two years ago. On the photograph there were several indistinguishable people running up and down a wide and high hall, built of a cold grey stone that could have perhaps been a part of some old castle, but in the middle stood a young man, or rather still a boy, only a little older than them, with round broken glasses, black messy hair and a noticeable lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. He was covered in little scratches and wounds, looked tired and sad, next to him stood a tall older man, who too had several, even worse looking wounds, but neither of them seemed to mind, as they now began to walk the aisle of the large hall, towards the spectator, and kept shooting rather stump looks in both directions. Only on second sight the three Scoobies noticed that it was corpses, laying on both sides, left and right of the aisle, one by one, filling the whole length of the hall.

The headline next to the picture said in large capitals "IT'S OVER." They all skimmed in silence through the article, that was reporting on a battle at a place called Hogwarts (Willow of course remembered immediately that it was the name of the Wizarding School, which Miss McGregor attended, as Giles had told them). Apparently, the boy on the cover had defeated a very potent dark wizard, to whom the paper only referred to as "_He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_" or "_You-Know-Who_". The article was full of hope, saying something about lighter times being ahead, now the darkest of all wizards being dead, glorifying the boy, whose name was Harry Potter, but it also repeatedly called him "_The Boy Who Lived_" or "_The Chosen One._"

"Not again," Xander said disgustedly. "How many chosen ones are there? I thought Buffy was exclusive."

Buffy glared at him, Willow just rolled her eyes.

"When he is a Chosen one, why give him such a lame name? ... Harry Potter, phh... Why not ... Merlin? ... Or Gandalf?" Xander continued contemplating about the wizarding Chosen one, while Willow turned the page of the Newspaper and gasped.

"Is that her?" She asked in disbelief, looking incredulously at another black and white photograph in the left lower corner of the next page. The background was the same as in the previous one, at the front page, the wide stone hall, but in the centre of the spectator's focus stood now two women, one of them was an elderly, grey-haired, very tall witch, dressed in a black robe and a black cloak. She looked just as tired and exhausted as the two men before, but the sadness seemed to have made place for determination in her expression. She wasn't looking at the dead bodies all around her, but kept her eyes fixed at the observer. In her left hand she held a wand, her right hand rested upon and occasionally would squeeze the shoulder of the other woman, who was younger.

"She looks amazing." Willow commented, astonished, for the teacher they knew, looked so very different, that in fact if it hadn't been for her face that looked exactly the same as they knew, they would not recognize her. She too, as the other witch, was wearing black, but her dress was more exquisite, fitting her younger age, a long black pleated silken skirt embroidered with black lace, a matching, hardly distinguishable, black silken blouse with a lace collar and a short thin black jacket, which too was adorned with subtle lacework. Her hair was tied at the back of her head, just as she used to wear it now, only some strands hung loose along her face. In each her hand she held a wand, both looking exactly the same – a warm mahogany wood – the one in her left hand might have been a little longer than the other. She too was looking in the direction of the spectator, but her eyes were empty, her gaze blank, she could as well be a wax figure. She looked calm, almost unearthly composed, which was very much in contrast to the hasty clutter that was going on behind her, because she wasn't moving at all, she was just standing there, next to the older woman, but there was something very unsettling, uncanny about her air. It was hard to intercept for a stranger, but it appeared as if that outer peace was rather opposed to what was going on inside the young woman.

"Yeah, not too bad." Xander said admiringly. "...for someone her age I mean." He added noticing Willow raising her eyebrows.

"Yeah, but you read this?" Buffy placed her finger at the short article next to the picture and Willow read aloud:

_The perhaps most spectacular piece of magic – if for a moment one puts aside the nonpareil spell exchange between Mr. Potter and You-Know-Who (_see pp. 1, 3-5_) – was performed by Helen Thornton, a Hogwarts history teacher, who – after having been cruciated and subsequently disarmed by Bellatrix Lestrange and thus wandless – killed the latter without pronouncing the killing curse aloud. Eyewitnesses, who gave account on the issue, emphasized, that Lestrange was still holding Miss Thornton's wand and was about to cast the killing curse herself, when an entirely unexpected flash of green light appeared and hit her in the chest, coming from the direction of her armless opponent. How and where exactly the flash could have emerged from, no one could determine, though all present at the event were unanimously certain, that it was the history teacher who cast the spell, which even she herself isn't denying. Several speculations are arousing as to how this was possible, Ms. Thornton and the assigned headmistress-to-be Minerva McGonagall (_both on the left picture_) having refused to comment on the matter. _

_Bellatrix Lestrange was the right hand of You-Know-Who and alongside her husband Rodolphus Lestrange played a major role in several brutal cases of murders and tortures during the first years of You-Know-Who's rising to power. Also later, after she and her husband, who remains missing, had escaped from Azkaban, Lestrange didn't stay behind her cruel reputation._

(On the possible explanations of the death of B. Lestrange read tomorrow a special discussion between experts of the Ministry; on Minerva McGonagall's assignment as a future headmistress of Hogwarts see p. 8; more about Bellatrix Lestrange's infamous life and career see p. 9-10.)

"Woow." Buffy said after a moment of silence, when they were trying to absorb the new knowledge. Giles was sure that like him they too, probably even less, could hardly comprehend the entire significance of it all, as they were not part of the wizarding world themselves. But still, it was... impressive, intriguing, strange, surreal? He wasn't sure what to think of it. She might not be such a grey little mouse in her own world as she is trying to be here.

When he asked Robson whether he could provide him with any useful accounts on Hogwarts, the Wizards and the Battle of Hogwarts, he had just been hoping to obtain some basic information about the Wizards in general, but instead he got even more questions than he had before, most of them revolving around her. Ms. McGregor. Or Ms. Thornton. Or whatever her name was. To all this confusion there arose a sense of guilt and discomfort, he felt like spying on her, receiving delicate intelligence behind her back, though it wasn't his original notion at all. He had no idea that she was involved in that Battle so literally... And now he knew. She killed a person. She too was a killer. She's taken a life. _So we have that in common, _he thought bitterly, when his own angry voice inside of his head said to him – _How can you possibly compare those two things? She has killed in self-defense, and her "victim" was a vicious murderer, she probably did the whole world a great service by getting rid of her, while you, "Ripper"... Well, you know better_.

_Still, it is something she – like me – has to live with, to cope with every day. And unless she's a mass murderer and used to it – which she really doesn't appear to me – then I know just how hard that is... _There hasn't passed a day on which he wouldn't feel dirty, stained by the knowledge that he was responsible for a life extinguished...

"Do you have the next issue?" Willow interrupted his thoughts, asking with an eager curiosity in her voice.

"Eh-, no, I'm sorry. That was the only copy my friend sent me. And a few books, I haven't got through them yet, but they all seem rather old."

"May I have a look?" Willow asked and jumped up off her chair.

"Yes-eh, yes, of course. They're in my office." Willow disappeared and the three of them were still staring at the moving photographs of the Daily Prophet.

"You think that's how she lost her husband?" Buffy asked quietly.

Giles frowned, strangely he did not actually think of that.

"Husband-sss, two of them. She had two, remember?" Xander said, the two others glared at him, but said nothing.

"She looks kinda scary, in all that black." He continued, scanning again the picture.

"Maybe she poisoned them both."

Buffy caught his string of thoughts in amusement: "And maybe she is a giant Black Widow by night." She said in an innocent voice. "She allures some wealthy old men to come to her home and then she injects them with her venom and..." she continued whispering, in a pretended excitement.

"Yeah. You should be careful, Giles." Xander said, not suspecting that the coming obvious joke would be on his account.

"Why me?" Giles asked, but Buffy interrupted him:

"Yeah, why him? That would certainly explain why You like her so much, Xan." She said in a teasingly sweet undertone.

Another week had passed, Giles had read carefully the few other books Robson had sent him. He got now an extensive account on all kinds of magical creatures in the _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_. Willow drew his attention to an interesting but rather meagre entry on the Thornton-family in _Nature`s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy_, that informed them, that Thorntons were in fact an ancient and well respected "pure-blood" wizarding family, whose roots probably might even go as far back as to the times of the most famous of all wizards, Merlin (for the safely traceable genealogy there was a picture of a family tree, dating back to the 14th century). Willow also told him, after she had read through the complete book, that there was no mention of anyone named McGregor anywhere in it.

Eventually Giles turned his focus to the last piece from Robson, a large and yet curious book called _A History of Magic_ by a Bathilda Bagshot, that he spared himself as the last, looking very much forward to read it. He still had not finished half the reading when other urgent present matters forced him to put it aside and direct his attention to another research: Buffy had been attacked by the Three, a trio of rather brutal killer-vampires – which had been a disturbing enough news itself – yet she managed to escape with the help of Angel, whom she offered shelter after the attack, inviting into her house. Yet the next day it had turned out, that Angel, who till then was presumed being a friend and somewhat of a helper to Buffy, was in fact a vampire. So now Giles had his hands full to read and search for any accounts that would tell them more about Angel and why he had been behaving as he had, not having killed Buffy, but aided her instead.

"There!" He said aloud to himself in a little triumph, as he found yet another – which now would have been the third – reference about a vampire called Angelus whose description seemed to fit on the Angel Buffy knew. Over his excitement he didn't hear the approaching footsteps until the person stood directly in front of the library counter and spoke.

"Good morning." A familiar low, insecure voice greeted him.

_AN: That's it for now. I hope you can forgive me for the canon-violation, of letting my OC having killed Bellatrix Lestrange... Please review, I'd be glad for any opinions, tips, critics, questions :)_


	10. Chapter 10: To leave or not to leave?

**Chapter 10**

**To leave or not to leave?**

_AN: The next bit. Here again are some quotes and lines from the actual series, episode 1.7, those of course belong to Joss Whedon and the writers of Buffy... _

He raised his head, very much surprised to see her, and couldn't quite suppress a pleased and a relieved smile – for he hasn't been sure she would come to the library ever again. "Ms.-eh McGregor! Good morning!"

Yet an awkward silence followed very quickly as they both didn't really know what to say or how to start a conversation, remembering well the last one obviously being the reason for the week-long separation.

She looked very tensed, her right hand was nervously crinkling her silken scarf again, and Giles could see a trace of fear in her eyes, that almost hurt him.

"I need to talk to you." She said, taking a deep breath.

"Of course." He answered friendly after a short moment and looked concerned, forgot all about Angelus for the present, all that was worrying him now, was her distress. He closed the Watcher's diaries, that were lying on the counter, and walked around it towards her. He stood now right in front of her, close enough to raise his hand he instinctively, not really knowing what he was doing, was about to put on her arm as some kind of a reassuring gesture – to let her know that whatever the problem might be, it'll get better.

But the instance she noticed the motion she immediately stepped back. Not much, but it was clear enough to him.

She wasn't looking into his eyes, when she spoke, slowly, considering every single word. "I know... that-eh... I... should have come earlier to tell you about this..." She looked up for a moment to see a gentle smile on his lips that was encouraging her to continue.

"But, I couldn't. And now I am blaming myself... It's already too late."

Now he was confused, frowning slightly.

She took another breath. "The other night, after you had killed the Mantis... when I was walking home, I-eh... was attacked by a vampire, a woman. Her name was Darla and she tried to kill me... I was scared... she was-eh... she was about to... bite me...when-eh..."

She raised her eyes again at him and to her surprise he seemed relieved, he even nodded a little, as if he guessed what was coming. Helen's eyes widened and she was unsure of whether to continue. Could it be that he knew? She thought completely irrationally, hope raising in her, that it might not be so horrible as she feared, when he interrupted her in his calm, velvet voice.

"And you defended yourself, as everyone would, and you killed her? With magic?"

_It must have been so_, he thought, as he spoke to her in a manner, that was inviting her to trust him, to put a part of her troubles away – to him. _She killed this... this Darla, and now she was probably feeling some kind of remorse, filled with the same sense of dirt, of impurity, even though it was a demon – she had after all far less experience with them than us – the unpleasant memories from her past, of this terrible Lestrange woman perhaps came high, along with others, of the Battle..._

Suddenly Helen felt numb. The hope from her gaze had disappeared; she stared at the ground blankly. "No. I didn't... She-eh..." She gulped. With every word it was getting harder and harder.

He frowned again a little and shook his head slightly.

"I didn't... kill her. I couldn't... attack her, no spell... my magic had no effect on her. She said something to me about wizards not being able to harm them, to fight the vampires here, I... I don't understand."

"What happened?" Giles asked slowly, when she paused, having absolutely no idea what was to come.

"She was about to bite me, she-eh... she had disarmed me of my wand, I couldn't do anything,... when someone else came. A man, I didn't see him too well, it was dark, he looked human, but-eh, from what she said to him – Angel, that was his name – he had to be a vampire too."

"Angel?" At the sound of his astonished, disbelieving voice now she raised her head.

"Yes. He told her to let go of me. She did. Then he told me to leave. I-eh... left. I ran. Home." She dared again to look at him.

He smiled and she felt somewhat eased. "Angel?" He asked again as to make sure he heard right.

"Yes. That was his name." She nodded, a flicker of new hope awakening.

He laughed a little, crossing his arms on his chest. She was watching him as he now took a step back, then turned her back to her, walked towards the small stairs, then turned around to face her again. It took her a few seconds, before she realized, that the smile, the laughter were both ironic. His voice as he spoke now was sharp, frosty, it gave her goosebumps. "So, Darla and Angel. And they let you go. And you let them go! And you didn't tell me – tell us – until now WHY exactly!"

"I had my reasons... I don't expect you to understand. Nor am I going to explain. You know now. And I _am_ sorry."

His expression hardened even more. His eyes were looking coldly down at her, the sign of disappointment in it.

"I hope those were some _grave_ reasons." He continued in a quiet, yet angry voice. "You have endangered many..."

"I know! I didn't-... I know... I realize-... I should have told you earlier-"

"You should have."

"I know it was probably a mistake-"

He smiled again, yet his eyes remained cold, that it hurt her to look into them.

"I am sorry if I'm being rude, but, as it happens, you're EXACTLY – only – two days too late. You should have come the day before yesterday and I MIGHT have valued your sharing this information with me more, perhaps even welcomed it in a friendlier manner." He spoke poignantly, every word felt like a deep cut in her chest, as he was now walking slowly back towards her. She could tell that he was trying hard to remain calm. He was so angry that he looked intimidating.

"But I am sure, that you will forgive me for being so harsh when I tell you, that two days ago Buffy invited the same Angel you had encountered – how many weeks ago now ? – into her home, assuming he was a friend... I suppose you should know very well by now what it means so that I don't have to tell you, that her mother isn't safe in her own house anymore and can't even know about it!"

She stared at him, not knowing, what else to say. There was no way she could make this better, she wasn't sure she should either. Perhaps it was for the best that he would stay angry with her, that he felt he couldn't trust her, that they would not have anything to do with each other... But the prospect pained her, as much as the thought of him thinking ill of her.

"It wouldn't have happened, if you had told us." He said after a while, his voice more calm, he sounded now hurt and devastated rather than angry, more like a teacher disappointed in an exemplary pupil which he held in high regard till then.

"I'm sorry." She said quietly. Once more he looked at her, a question in his eyes, a hope that she might say something after all, offer an explanation, something, that would make it better, that would restore his opinion, his ideal.

When she stayed mute, he said in an acerb tone, not looking at her, while he walked over behind his counter: "You will excuse me now, I have important things to research on."

She bowed slightly and walked away.

Giles felt so very angry. He didn't understand, he thought that it wasn't like her, it didn't fit at all to the perception he had of her, he couldn't think of any reason why she would have kept from him that she met the two vampires. He would have thought, that she would show a far better judgment. It was beside the point, that the vampires were Angel and Darla. Even if it were some other, entirely unknown vampires and even if Buffy hadn't invited one of them into her house... She should have known, especially after she had experienced it on her very own skin, that those were dangerous and that they had to be taken care of. And that he and Buffy were the first to be told...

Also he was sick of people keeping important things from him. First the Council and now her too. But then, from the council, or rather from Quentin Travers he would have expected no better, though it still gave him offence and bothered him. But her! For her to have that, to have _anything_ in common with people like Travers – even if the two things were hardly comparable – it disappointed him beyond saying.

When he calmed himself down a little, he managed to think more factually about _what_ she said. About Angel letting her go, when he ought to kill her, averting that Darla would feed on her... There was something odd about the vampire. Could it be that he was indeed different? That he was, as Willow put it earlier that day, _a good vampire_?

When Buffy called him later that evening to tell him that Angel had attacked her mother in their house, his question seemed answered. He was outraged. In a moment of fury he thought about going to Helen's office to shout at her that it was all her fault, that she could have prevented this. But then he reasoned with himself, realizing that it would probably be a waste of time, and he hurried to the hospital.

Helen was sitting in her office, working. Mr. Pescoe had left an hour ago and so she could continue grading the sophomore essays in there, without being disturbed by his loud exclamations. She was glad for the huge amount of work she had to do, for it was hindering her from thinking of Giles and the misfortunate talk. Yet, around half past nine she was finished, and there really was nothing left for her to do. She had now prepared her lessons and tests for the next three weeks (!) and couldn't think of anything more to work on. She leaned back on her chair, Giles' words reentering her mind. _You have endangered many... It wouldn't have happened, if you had told us... _She shrugged as she recalled his icy glance.

She wasn't even angry with herself anymore. The despair too stepped back, she felt... resignation, she was beginning to develop the persuasion that her assumption that she could find here some peace had proven wrong, that she wasn't able yet to deal with other people properly which led her to make a grave mistake, that might have put some lives on risk, she was about to accept it as a fact, that she failed, and the thought of leaving already occurred to her as the only, the best possible option.

_Buffy's mother isn't safe in her own house anymore and can't even know about it..._ She sighed and stood up. _The last decent thing I can do is to ask if I can help in any way..._ she thought, and although at the moment she feared nothing more than for the cold hazel eyes, filled with disappointment to look down at her again, her conscience let her pick up the rest of her courage and go to the library. But she didn't find anyone there, even if the light was still on and some books laid open on the tables and on the counter.

"Hello?" She asked and proceeded towards Giles'office. The door was open, but no one was in there, his coat was gone. Slowly she walked back, came to a halt in the middle of the library hall and turned around. No, the library was completely deserted, that was for sure. She took a deep breath, walked towards the exit, and before she left, her eyes swept once more over the place. _So be it..._ she thought, the decision already half-made.

When Giles arrived at the hospital – where Joyce and the doctors were led to believe that she had an accident at home, slipped and cut her neck on a barbecue fork – he found Buffy determined to go after Angel and to finally kill him, no matter what possible feelings she might have for him. She wouldn't let him stop her and left, first to the library to arm herself with better weapons, then she was off to search for the place where Angel was staying.

Giles and the other two stayed in the hospital, to keep company to Joyce. She was just contemplating about Buffy having difficulties with her studies.

"I-I know she's having trouble with history. I-is it too difficult for her or is she not applying herself?"

Giles smiled sheepishly at her as he tried to answer carefully: "She lives very much in the 'now', um, and, uh, history, of course, is, is very much about the, uh... the 'then'. B-b-but there's no reason..."

"She's studying with Willow, she's studying with Darla, I-I mean, she is trying."

Giles froze. "Darla?"

"Her friend, the one who came over tonight." Joyce answered, frowning, thinking that it had been obvious before when she had spoken of the incident. A sudden apprehension overcame him.

"Darla came to your house tonight? Sh-she's the friend that you mentioned earlier?"

She didn't need to answer, he knew. It all fit. It must have been Darla who bit Buffy's mother and almost killed her, Angel probably came just in time and – since he had been invited into the house before – he could prevent the worst, Buffy must have caught him in a wrong moment and misinterpreted the scene? However it was, they had to hurry and find her, for she didn't know there was another vampire after her...

Next week, on a late afternoon, Giles was finally making his way to Helen's office. It took him long before he found the courage, or rather the right words and the right way to say to her what he felt he had to.

He found her, as he'd been expecting, in her classroom, grading some papers. He stopped in the open door and cleared his throat. Immediately she raised her head to see who the visitor was, and blushed a little, didn't smile, didn't blink, didn't say anything. It unsettled him. Her face was expressionless.

Her heartbeat reached a frequency she didn't know was possible. There he was, standing in the doorway, when she didn't expect to really talk to him ever again.

Giles tried to smile, then entered the classroom and walked cautiously towards her desk, his hands in his pockets, and Helen experienced a déjà-vu.

"Hello." He said finally.

She squirmed a little, as he was approaching her dusk further, then said "Hello" too.

"Eh-you- I thought you-you might want to hear-eh, you might be pleased to hear that-eh, Darla... is dead."

She nodded, stared at her essays and murmured to herself "_pleased_".

"Sorry?" He asked as he didn't quite caught what she said.

She raised and shook her head. "Oh, nothing. Listen. I-eh... I'm sorry. I don't know what to say, I-eh know it was an inexcusable-"

"I _hope_ you do." He interrupted her, looking at her seriously, but there was no anger in his eyes, as they were piercing through her. "I am sorry I spoke so rude when you came to tell me. But you must see... I... I..."

"You don't have to... be sorry... you were right."

"I was." He looked deep into her eyes and made a pause before continuing slowly: "I only regret... that it was necessary." He said and that sentence hurt her more than anything he had said before, for it meant, that he too probably had cared about her, a little at least, and that he felt that she had failed him, that she had disappointed him as a person, not just him as a watcher. What he meant was that he was sorry, that he was sad that she gave him a reason where he had to be so harsh to her. She winced at those words, but couldn't manage to say anything. It's always been like this, she had always had difficulties expressing her feelings, she hated herself for it, but she also knew that it would probably never change. So this time too she just stared at him, with a sad faint smile upon her lips. Giles again was waiting for her to say something more, but when she didn't he made a step towards the door. "Well, I-uh... leave you now to-to your work."

She nodded. "Good bye" were her last words before he left and she turned back to her papers.

The time went by, several weeks passed, with nothing special occurring that would demand the action of the Scoobies. Giles decided not to tell the others about Helen's earlier encounter with Darla and Angel, he couldn't see any good in it, and he was sure that she would probably stay out of their way anyway, though he wasn't sure how he found it. He didn't exactly get used to her, no, it was hard to describe for him, it's been a long time since he had the occasion to spend some more thoughts on a woman. He was surprised to find out, that he now sort of missed her. It occurred to him that before she came, before she first entered his library, he never thought so. As if he noticed only now when he didn't get to see her every other day that there has always been this little leak somewhere around or in him, that was just very tiny, hardly noticeable before she came around, yet now when she was gone it made an empty gaping wide open and very discernible hole.

Yet, he told himself, time will close it, as it always does. It's time to move on, it was but a short, failed episode, he thought, and began again to devote his complete attention to his watcher duties.

He had been quite successful to push her out of his mind, he was working on a translation of some old vampire account from the 13th century, when on an early afternoon he was told by a student to appear in the Principal's office after the last period.

_I wonder what he wants_, he thought later on his way to Snyder's.

Meanwhile Helen was already sitting on one of the two armchairs in Snyder's office, the Principal had just left for a moment, but said that he would return in a minute.

_I hope he has some good reason for having me summoned here_, she thought annoyed. She didn't like the new principal at all. And it wasn't just because he refused to liberate her from her two-years-contract when she asked him few weeks ago, if she could leave the school already after this school year. She was rather hoping that now he might have changed his mind.

Snyder returned and walked over to his desk, without saying a single word to her. She looked at him in expectation.

"We'll wait for Mr. Giles to come..." He said in his unfriendly manner and she blushed.

"Mr. Giles?" She asked fearfully just as the door went open and Giles entered. She turned around only to see her own confused and blushed expression reflected in his. Yet unlike her he smiled shyly at the sight of her and greeted her. "Ms. Gregor, hello."

"Hello." She answered weakly.

"Sit down." Snyder addressed him rolling his eyes at the exchange between the two. Giles glared at him, so he added: "Please."

"So. I have called you both here, because I have an assignment for you." He began in his very own grumpy way. Helen and Giles exchanged apprehensive, worried looks.

"I want you both to run the annual school talent show."

Silence. Helen didn't believe her ears. She expected... well, she didn't really know what she expected but certainly not being put in charge of a horrible high-school "talent" event. _Oh no!_ She thought as the memories from Black Forest, then from Hogwarts came up to her mind, first of embarrassing drama-scenes, then of singing (or rather shrieking) student bands, and at last of a terrible, dissonant school orchestra playing some awful post-modern piece she only later found out was supposed to be Beethoven's 7th symphony... _N-no, n-no, no, no, no_... Her eyes filled with horror.

"Why?" She squeaked, obviously louder than was necessary because both men gave her strange looks. She shook her head and managed a forced smile. "I mean, why- why- why us?"

Snyder looked wary at her, an answer already long prepared.

"You are both new here and perhaps it is time for you to do something more for this school, to show a little dedication."

She frowned at him in disbelief. "So are you." She said, making clear that it was the poorest reason she ever heard of, then continued in a more careful tone: "You're even newer than us, to be precise... Why don't _you _run the talent show yourself? It's not like you have any classes to teach..."

The corners of Giles' mouth twitched as he tried to suppress a smile.

Snyder gave them both a sinister look. He wasn't going to negotiate. "The show will take place on the 20th next month. You have three weeks. I suggest you don't waste your time."

"With all respect, sir, I am a-a- librarian, I know nothing of-eh... of running-eh... an event like this..."

"And that's why it's _the two_ of you." Snyder interrupted him, entirely unimpressed by Giles' objection.

"Yes. Well, what I meant was, that-eh... being a librarian I-eh... I don't have much contact with students – and believe me when I say that it really doesn't bother me... in fact-"

"Then it's time for you to apply yourself more." Snyder snapped. "It's time for you to crawl out of that library and meet the real world." Giles fell silent.

Helen looked defiantly at the little Principal, as if saying _this isn't over_, then she stood up, and so did Giles, resigned.

When they were at the door and about to leave, Snyder said to her: "It might just take your mind of any thoughts about quitting here, Ms. Gregor, I told you it's not possible." As she turned angrily at him, he smiled nastily and added. "What you need is just to bond more tightly with the school and I'm sure you'll forget all about your wanting to leave."

"Right." Giles finally said as they were both standing outside Snyder's office, Helen leant against the wall, he came closer and leant next to her, both staring gloomy in the school corridor.

"Right." She sighed.

_AN: Pls. pls. review._


	11. Chapter 11: The Talent Show

Chapter 11

The Talent Show

_AN: The next one. I'm not very happy about it, it is mostly repeating the original series, - again several lines from the actual episode 1.9 – those belong to Joss Whedon and his writers – so there is not much of a fan fiction in here, I'm sorry, I hope you enjoy anyway :))_

_This is a nightmare..._ Helen thought. Then she threw a stealthy glance at Giles leaning against the wall next to her... _although, on the other hand... _somewhere deep inside her a feeling of warmth was spreading that she remembered from the earlier afternoons and evenings she had spent in the library, with Giles around.

They were both too British to nag aloud about their ordeal or to speak out loud all the curses they were directing against Snyder in their minds as they were now both walking towards the library.

"I don't suppose we can-uh... take a leave of absence for the next three weeks... or just run away and flee..." Giles said gloomy.

She laughed. "I'm afraid not. Although that's what I'm an expert in..."

"Is it... what Principal Snyder said- are you leaving Sunnydale?" Giles asked, his hands in his pockets.

She blushed a little. "No, no. I-eh... I wanted to. I asked him but he wouldn't permit it, my contract had been signed for two years, you see..."

"I-I hope it's-eh... it's not because of what happened with Angel and Darla..."

"No, no, no. It's... I just thought perhaps this... isn't the right place for me to stay... and that maybe it would have been for the best to... leave, go somewhere else, somewhere more-uh... actually less...somewhere less - hellmouth-y." Once again her hand wandered to her dark green scarf and began to play with the fringes.

"Hm." For a moment they were walking in silence, then Giles said. "It would-uh... be a pity... I-I hear you're-eh... very well liked among the students." Now it was him who blushed.

She raised her head and looked at him bemused. "Really? I thought you didn't have much contact with their kind..."

He laughed nervously and held the swing door to the library open for her. "W-well, Willow-uh... and Xander tell me... they are fond of you... and-uh... your-your class."

"Heyyy, let's not spread these lies here, Giles."

They both now raised their heads to see Xander coming out of the cage, looking at them.

"I do like you." He hurried to add towards Helen. "I just don't like classes. Any of them."

"What's up? You two look kind of beaten..." Buffy asked from her chair, where she was sitting opposite to Willow, doing some homework.

Giles and Helen looked at each other, their eyes filled with resignation and embarrassment.

"We've been sentenced by Principal Snyder to run the school talent show in three weeks." Giles answered stoically as they were approaching the group.

Now the three teenagers exchanged meaningful looks.

"You two?" Buffy asked raising her eyebrows amused.

Helen nodded.

"Together?" Willow asked, hardly able to suppress her excitement.

Giles nodded.

"The two of you together then?" Xander repeated.

They both nodded, exchanging confused looks.

"Weeell, isn't that something." Buffy said teasingly, clearly enjoying this.

"My, Snyder must really have it in for you Brits." Xander shook his head.

Giles grinned at him annoyed, then chose to ignore them and turned to Helen. "So, what-uh... do you propose we do first? I must confess I have absolutely no experience whatsoever in things like this... I don't suppose you do..."

"What? Don't they have talent shows in magic schools?" Buffy interrupted him.

"Yeah, like – who can blow up the biggest part of the school with a single jinx... or turn a teacher into a toad..." Xander said.

"That wouldn't require an actual talent, Xander." Helen replied instructively.

"Ok. Then into something more artistic... an origami or... a garden gnome..."

Helen shook her head and turned back to Giles, trying to suppress the images that were slipping into her mind at Xander's words. "We had those shows at my old school... But I've never been involved... I think perhaps the first thing we should do would be the posters."

"Posters?" Giles asked.

"Yes, I mean, to announce it, to prepare a few large advertisements and to distribute them on the black boards in the school asking students with some-eh..." Gulp. "alleged ... talents... to enter... you know, sort of a recruiting commercial..."

"Ah, yes, I see, that-that sounds like a good idea." Giles said, adjusting his glasses.

"Yes, apart from the part where we have to do it..." She murmured. Suddenly they looked at each other, their expressions lightened up a little as the very same idea popped into their both minds. Exchanging knowing smiles then together they turned towards the three Scoobies who were following their dialogue, and pierced at them in expectation.

Willow, already sensing some mischief, glanced at them, afraid of what was coming.

"What?" Xander asked, bewildered. Buffy frowned.

Later that evening Xander, Willow and Buffy were still sitting in the library, large sheets of paper spread all around them, and they were dutifully inscribing them with the announcement of the talent show.

"This is slavery work." Buffy said for what seemed like the hundredth time, so that the anger in her voice was long gone, and she was now rather reconciled with their fate, but tired.

"This is blackmail, that's what it is." Xander however was still indignant, Helen had suggested to him that she might be more tolerant, more considerate than usual when marking his next exam if he'd help them with the poster work.

"So, the last one is done." Finally Willow stood up.

"Giles?" Buffy shouted. "We're finished!"

Couple of moments later Giles came out of his office, holding an open book in his hand, saying without taking his eyes from his lecture: "Splendid. Now go and hang those up on every blackboard." He was about to enter his office again when he yet raised his head and turned to them: "Oh, and do bring one copy along to Miss McGregor. She wanted to see it." He said in his strict, casually demanding tone.

Over two weeks later, one could say, that the things were going quite smoothly. Enough students have enlisted for the show, each were given about five minutes for their performance, and Giles and Helen were now sitting in the school auditorium supervising the rehearsal. Only a couple of days were remaining before the "great" show and both Giles and Helen couldn't wait till it was all over and were already very much looking forward to the "day after", when they could hopefully erase for ever the memory of Cordelia's singing from their minds. Apart from the show they both had their hands full with other work, Giles reading yet another vampire-related manuscript, Helen preparing final exams in each of her classes as the end of the school year was approaching as well.

Principal Snyder forced the three Scoobies to participate in the show the other day and none of their begging or pleading would help them.

Later that afternoon Snyder came to enquire how the preparations were going and once more, at watching Buffy and the others, he began one of his tiresome sermons about discipline and the need of being hard at the students, showing no mercy, pointing out whereto that had led his predecessor. He was just – again – predicting a new era for the school under his very own principality, underlining that he won't tolerate any of those kinds of accidents that had occurred while Mr. Flutie was in charge: "From now on you're gonna see a very different Sunnydale High. Tight ship, clean, orderly, and quiet."

Yet as if someone up above – or down below – them wanted to disagree very strongly with those words, suddenly Snyder was interrupted through a girl's high-pitched scream...

About an hour later Giles and Helen returned to the library. The rehearsal had naturally been interrupted and postponed.

"It's-uh... Emily." Giles spoke as Willow, Buffy and Xander walked towards them. Emily was one of the participants in the show, a rather accomplished ballet dancer.

"Her heart was removed."

After they all had recovered from the shock and the abhorrence of this news, they decided to investigate. Giles had indicated, that they might be dealing with a human, a murderer – due to the fact, that the heart had been cut out with a large knife – even though Buffy expressed her doubts about it – this being Hellmouth and all.

They talked with every person involved in the show and all the evidence seemed to point towards one person, the boy with the dummy, Morgan, who according to everyone was supposed to have had a talk with Emily the previous day, probably just before she had been killed.

Two days later, on The Day of the Show, they thought they had it all figured out after Giles had found a record of a demon, or rather a brotherhood of seven demons, one of which they assumed now would be Morgan. Every seven years he would need a human heart – which he had already – and a human brain – which he had to get yet, to maintain his human form. But then the things took an unexpected turn. Buffy, who was looking for Morgan, found him dead, his brain removed, and was attacked by the dummy, Sid was its name. They fought each other in the backstage of the school auditorium, both thinking the other one being the demon, until finally they safely established and persuaded each other that it wasn't so. Sid in fact turned out to be nothing less than a former demon hunter, who due to a curse became trapped in the body of the dummy many years ago. As it seemed, he and the Scoobies now had been pursuing the very same goal – though out of slightly different motivations – to destroy the seventh demon.

"I've killed six. If I can get the last one, the curse will be lifted and I'll be free. I'm sure it's someone in that stupid talent show." Sid said in his raspy voice.

"Yeah, but now that demon has what he wants. He'll be moving on." Buffy argued.

They decided, that to determine, which person could be the demon, Giles and Helen should return to the auditorium, where the show was about to begin in half an hour, and form the "power circle", as Sid called it: They would convene everyone on the show to come on the stage under the pretext of wishing them good luck for the performance, and would so see, who was missing. Buffy and Sid ran along to take position in the backstage to watch, while Xander and Willow stayed in the library to draw from the net the addresses of all participants.

It looked like the plan was flawless. It had to work, it was plain and clear. Whoever wouldn't show up had to be their demon. It was that simple. Their surprise and disappointment, when everyone came to the stage, was accordingly great. Helen and Giles frowned at each other, after they had dismissed the participants. Buffy joined them.

"No one's missing." Helen said, still a little stumped. "What now?"

"I-I don't know. Seems like the demon must be someone else." Giles answered, looking around himself desperately, as if waiting for the solution to jump at him from somewhere. After a while he turned to them, rubbing his forehead nervously. "You two go tell the others, Willow and Xander, try to find out some more,... check this Morgan-chap once again... Look, it's nearly curtain. I'll get the show rolling."

Helen hesitated for a moment.

"Go." He repeated and was already about to leave towards the backstage, where Buffy disappeared too in order to find Sid, who was gone.

So Helen returned to the library and told Willow and Xander about the infamous outcome of their attempt. They were just discussing who else might come into question as possible demon, as Buffy came in with a tortured expression on her face. She told them that she had found Morgan's brain backstage. Also Sid the Dummy was missing. This posed them in front of several questions. Shortly Willow found out, when she entered the school nurse's files, that Morgan, although being the smartest student of Sunnydale High, had brain cancer. His brain to the demon was useless.

"That's good, right? It means he can't maintain his demon-being." Xander said.

"Yes, it also means he'll be looking for a substitute." Helen replied, looking concerned.

"And he's gonna be looking for the smartest person around." Buffy added and they all looked at Willow.

Meanwhile Giles was helping Marc, or so he thought, a boy who was preparing a number of "magic" tricks, after he had asked him really nicely, complimenting on his intelligence:

"Gee, Mr. Giles... you're really... smart. Could you help me out?"

In the library the four of them drew the conclusion that the demon might very well be someone of the show, now they knew he didn't have the brain yet.

"The show!" Helen shouted. "Giles!"

"He doesn't know. He's with all them right now!" Buffy said fearfully, but Xander objected.

"Giles can handle himself. I mean he's really..."

They all froze, exchanging horrified looks. "... smart." The four said in a sepulchre unison.

Without any further words they all ran out of the library towards the auditorium.

They arrived at the last second. At the moment they entered the wide room, Marc, whose hands were already loosing their human appearance, has just cut through the rope of his guillotine, and the blade was about to slit Giles' skull open.

"Aah—" Giles cried out and closed his eyes.

"_Detineo!_" Helen screamed, pointing her wand, which she held ready, at the guillotine. It stopped in the air. She wasn't sure how long she could hold it with her powers being weak.

Buffy took advantage of the surprise that caught the demon and attacked it.

"Xander, get the rope, hold it firm."

Xander hurried towards the guillotine and when he caught the rope, Helen broke off the spell and together with Willow they too ran over towards the stage. Willow was about to try and open the locks that bounded Giles to the execution instrument.

"Where are the keys?" She asked.

"Marc's got them." Giles answered in a panicky voice.

Willow took the hatchet that was lying on the floor and began to hack the lock.

Helen meanwhile wanted to help Buffy get rid of Marc. With every second he was becoming less human, revealing his demon visage.

"_Confringo!_" She yelled yet again, her wand pointing at the zombie-like demon that was fighting with Buffy. Nothing but a couple of blue sparkles emerged from the top of the wand. She was starring perplexed and annoyed at the wooden stick, shaking her head incomprehensively, and didn't notice the approaching demon. It almost hit her when Buffy jumped at it from a side, crashing to the ground with it. She shouted in a muffled voice towards Helen: "Help Willow!"

She turned around confused to see Willow struggling with the obstinate lock of the guillotine.

"Hurry!" Giles said.

Helen ran over to them, directed her wand at the lock: "_Alohomora!_" It did relent. They released Giles.

Sid has shown up and was now too fighting the demon, which seemed to ignore him, as it was with its whole passion slamming Buffy against a wall.

Helen quickly decided to give it one more try: "_Petrificus totalus!_" This time too the expected effect didn't follow. It was frustrating, disturbing, but she had no time to think about it any further for now.

Fortunately, Buffy and Sid finally overpowered the demon and managed to behead it under its own guillotine. Subsequently, Sid stuck a knife into the demon's heart, preventing him from ever raising again, but also putting an end to his own existence.

"I-I must say... all of you... your t-timing is impeccable." Giles said, giving a relieved sigh.

Buffy took Sid's body into her arms, when suddenly, the curtain in front of the group was lifted and revealed to them a full auditorium, with Principal Snyder sitting in the front row, gazing morosely and frowning. The scene that was offering itself to his eyes was... peculiar to say the least. His look wandered over it: The Summers girl carrying a dressed-up wooden puppet in her arms, standing behind a guillotine, on which a weird mummy-like thing was spread across... his head being cut off, lying on the floor... the little Rosenberg holding a hatchet in both her hands, her eyes wide opened, filled with terror, Harris, just grinning stupidly at the audience, the teacher standing next to the guillotine, with a wooden stick in one hand, the librarian just next to her, all sweaty and for his standards unusually ragged...

"What is this?" Snyder murmured. "Avant-garde?"

Helen looked at the others, raised her eyebrows at Giles and motioned him to bow. They all followed, with deep bows and tensed, wide smiles.

A reluctant clapping from the audience arose.

Moments later Helen and Giles were sitting next to the Principal in the first row. The mess on the stage had been cleaned up and the actual show began, though neither of them both was really there with their minds. Giles couldn't think of anything else than the fact that he was, indeed, alive, still, and the memory of how close the blade of that thing was to his head, kept haunting him and was making him close his eyes every few minutes again and again.

Helen was just really tired and exhausted, and the working – or better – the not-working, the malfunction of her wand was occupying her thoughts.

Cordelia was just singing- no, screeching and raping, violating in the most insolent manner – the Whitney Houston song The Greatest Love of All, Helen had to close her eyes, to try to ignore the pain in her ears. She felt something drip on her hands which she was keeping over her lap. She opened her eyes just as another drop of red liquid fell on her forearm. She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief that wasn't there. _Typical_, she thought, and could hear the voice of her father in her ears, reproving her, saying _A proper lady does always carry a handkerchief with herself_... She laid her left hand on Giles' knee to alert him that she needed to get out. She stood up and ducked she passed Giles and, under very disapproving glances from Snyder's and concerned looks from Giles, left the row and the auditorium and hurried towards backstage, where the next washroom was.

She was bending over the basin, with a wet cold towel pressed at her neck, hoping that the bleeding would stop soon. With the other hand she had to lean on the cold marble around the basin. Clearly, no matter how much effect the spells had on their actual targets, they had a great one on herself.

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be out there? Rejoicing in the great success of our greatest talents?"

She raised her head and saw Buffy in the mirror, dressed in a white toga, now walking towards her to wash her hands. She laughed weakly.

"I'm skiving off."

"Oh. And I thought, your nose was bleeding." Buffy said in a half amused tone, but threw a little anxious look at the teacher.

"This?" She raised the hand that was pressed on her neck a little. "It's nothing. No. I-uh... I poked a pencil into my nose... on purpose. One more verse from Cordelia's song and I would have wished that demon had got us all killed..." She said trying to sound lightly.

Buffy smiled. "You're gonna be ok?" She asked.

"Yes." Helen nodded reassuringly. After a pause she added. "Can you... could you... I don't think I'm going back there, this might take a while. Could you tell Mr. Giles-"

"Sure. You best go home." Buffy moved to leave. "Thank you by the way."

Helen raised her eyebrows, shook her head, asking in a nasal voice. "For what?"

"For saving my watcher's butt." Buffy grinned.

"Hmm, unless I miss something really essential here, then... I believe you meant to say his brain." She smiled at Buffy in the mirror.

"Yeah, whatever..., a slayer without a watcher... is only half of the fun, so... thanks for not letting his most useful part get cracked."

Helen bowed now and said nonchalantly. "Any time."


	12. Chapter 12: The invisible girl

Chapter 12

The one with the invisible girl

_AN: This one is a little longer, it too is very close to the actual series. But don't worry, after this I won't redo every single episode, there should be more action afterwards, I hope :)_

The end of the school year was approaching with large steps and the teachers were busy with grading the final exams. After the bizarre and arduous strains of the talent show Helen, just as much as Giles, would have welcomed some quiet and calm, demonless time, without troubles or strange occurrences, but once again the Hellmouth had other plans...

It was late afternoon, Helen was sitting in her office, shaking her head while grading some history essays. Some students actually reinterpreted the cause and purpose of the French Revolution, or rather of the execution of Marie Antoinette, claiming with all earnest that the peasant women had been jealous of the queen's pretty dresses and eccentric wigs. Another one suggested that the peasants might not have liked the queen's German accent (how or where actually these peasants should have had the opportunity to hear it, that remained a great mystery to the reader...) Another student yet had decided to change the course of European history, stating that the 30-years-war in fact had taken place at the beginning of the 19th century in Russia, had lasted only ten years and was a struggle between "Bolsheviks and the other guys". _Interesting_... Helen thought, _you never know what you learn in these things_.

"Oh dear." She raised her head as Mr. Pescoe entered the classroom. "I really don't know what is going on in this place." He was shaking his head and walking towards the office door.

"What happened?" She asked him.

"This place is ... hell." The old man was very agitated. "I've just spoken to Mrs. Barnes, and she told me, that there had been an attack on Ms. Miller, the English teacher. She almost stifled. Hadn't it been for that-that terrible Chase-girl, she'd be dead now." He was clearly scandalized by this. "First the boy, then the girl, and now this!" He exclaimed.

Two days earlier a student had been also attacked, in the boy's locker room, by an unknown person.

"The girl? What girl?" Helen asked, for she hadn't heard of any further incidents since then.

"Yesterday, a girl, you haven't heard?" He asked and when she shook her head, he went forth in a whisper: "She'd been pushed down the staircase in the courtyard, but no one could say who did it."

"Well, was there nobody around to tell?"

"Yes, she was talking to Cordelia Chase – again, honestly, that girl is always there where there's trouble – and the Summers girl, but they didn't see anything." He gave her a meaningful look. "I only say this, I am thinking of retiring after next school year. It's too dangerous here, when you ask me. If I had wanted a perilous profession, I'd have become a chimney sweeper!" He added indignantly.

Helen smiled absentmindedly.

In the door to their office he turned around once more:

"Oh, and do you know that that awful Chase-woman became May-Queen? What is wrong with this place? !" He shook his head, then smiled boldly and winked at her before he entered the office and closed the door behind him.

_That's odd._.. Helen thought. _Buffy was there when it happened? Let's not do her injustice, but... if she was around, it can't be good_. Quickly she marked the last couple of exams and resorted to the library.

There were Giles, Willow and Xander sitting and staying around the main table, looking rather desperate and clueless.

"There's nothing in here about curing invisible people." Xander sighed.

Helen walked towards them. "Hi. What's the matter? I've just heard from Mr. Pescoe about an attack on Ms. Miller. You know something about it?" She asked.

"Yes." Giles answered, putting aside the book he was holding, and began to clean his glasses while explaining to her what they knew.

A girl, a student called Marcie Ross, apparently was on some kind of a vengeance trip against Cordelia, who – just like the whole rest of the school – had been ignoring her and so Marcie, till then being just unseen actually became invisible, which slightly complicated the matters for them and especially for Buffy as it was nearly impossible to find and fight Marcie.

Cordelia was about to be crowned the May Queen later that evening at the Bronze and refused any suggestions that would prevent her from attending the ceremony. Buffy agreed finally, thinking that they could use Cordy as a bait, and decided to accompany her, as some sort of her bodyguard, in case Marcie would attack her – which she certainly planned.

"Hm" was the only thing Helen could say. She was puzzled and it occurred to her how very bizarre this whole thing was, especially when one considered that this was muggle world. She'd never have thought that things like becoming invisible were possible outside the wizarding community... _How very naïve_...

"Listen!" Willow spoke suddenly. They all looked at her, but then could hear it too. Somewhere someone was playing flute. Bach, Sonata in Es, the Siciliano part, and quite nicely...

"Come on." Giles said and they all followed him out of the library.

The music seemed to be coming from somewhere distant. They followed it downstairs until they reached the basement. The sound was coming from behind a heavy metal door. Xander opened it and all four of them entered the boiler room, only to find a tape recorder on one of the shelves, which had apparently been the source of the music.

"Can you say _gulp_?" Xander said and turned it off, and immediately they heard running footsteps, but no one could be seen, as the heavy metal door, through which they'd entered, got slammed. They ran towards it, but it was shut firm.

Yet this wasn't the most terrifying circumstance: After only splits of a second Giles noticed: "What's that sound?" He said, but he'd already guessed.

And, indeed, soon enough they could all smell the gas that was filling up the small room, stealing the precious oxygen bit by bit.

Helen and Giles walked towards the furnace, but couldn't find the valve to shut the gas off. Xander did. It was lying on the floor, Marcie had broken it off.

"That's bad. How about the door?" Willow squeaked and together with Xander they threw themselves at the hard solid metal, while Giles stood in front of the valves, thinking.

When the two were about to swing a bar they found laying around against the door, Giles stopped them just in time: "No! One spark and you'll take the whole building with us!"

Helen pointed her wand at the gas valve and wanted to try some spell, when Giles interrupted her too. "Doesn't that... spark too?"

Helen dropped her raised hand. "Oh." She said resigned. "Right... it probably wouldn't have worked anyway."

Giles tried to shut the gas off with his bare hand, not minding the burns it caused him.

"That should give us a few minutes... but if we don't get out of this room soon..."

Again and again they were trying to beat the door open, slammed themselves against it, but their strength was fading and minutes later they were all sitting, leaning against the door, already drifting out of consciousness.

Then someone opened the door. Giles helped Helen to stand up and led her through the door out into the wonderful oxygenful freedom, while Xander and their unknown rescuer helped to carry out Willow.

When they were all outside and the door to the boiler room closed, Helen, still a little dizzy and regaining her focus, heard Xander saying: "Hi! What do you want?"

Then a voice answered and Helen stiffened. "I brought you the codex. I came in through the basement. I smelled the gas."

It sounded familiar, yet she couldn't quite place it. She furrowed her eyebrows and tried to fix her eyes on the stranger, while still leaning on Giles, who was now holding a book in his hand that seemed to have come from nowhere.

She stared at the man and then she remembered. It was the man from that night when she encountered Darla. It was Angel! Angel the vampire! She took out her wand, not really knowing what she was doing, acting out of some sense of guilt that she wanted to make better, to make amends. Her vision still blurry, she pointed the wand at Angel and pushed Giles slightly aside, then murmured the spell: "_Sectumsempra_." They all turned their heads at her, after her wand had given off couple of weak blue sparks.

Angel smiled at her, then said quietly in a half amused half appeasing tone. "That won't work."

She pulled at the sleeve on Giles' shirt and whispered to him: "That's him, that's Angel, the vampire!"

"It's alright. We know him. He isn't any danger to us. He doesn't feed on humans anymore." Giles said to her.

_But of course_, Helen blushed as she remembered. _Right, they knew naturally, as he was the friend of Buffy's... how embarrassing..._

"Hmpf." Xander made a noise to express he had his own doubts about the validity of Giles' statement.

Giles gave him a warning look and added. "He-he's got a soul. He doesn't kill humans."

Helen bowed a little. "Right. I'm awfully sorry, I should have known."

Then Giles turned to Angel: "We-we need to shut it off, otherwise the whole building will go up."

"I'll get it. It's not like I need any oxygen." Angel replied. "Get them out of here."

Helen went ahead, Xander and Giles behind her, supporting Willow. Upstairs they waited until Angel returned and confirmed that the gas had been shut off. He looked at Willow.

"I can bring her home."

"Would you do that?" Giles asked. "That would be most helpful."

Willow hang herself onto Angel and murmured: "I'm up, mom."

"Alright, but I am coming with you." Xander said, peeved, glaring at the vampire. Angel rolled his eyes, then they both took Willow in the middle and led her out.

Giles and Helen watched them leave, then together without words they headed for the library. From the corridor they could hear the phone ringing. It was Buffy, telling them, that they got Marcie just in time and that some "creepy guys" from the FBI took her away. Obviously her case wasn't the only one of its kind. After Giles had hung up, he walked over to a basin, removed the handkerchief from his wounded hand and held it under the water. Only then Helen remembered that he had burnt himself. She went over to him.

"May I see?"

"Hm? Oh, it's not that bad." When she glanced at him, he held his hand out to her and she took it to inspect the wounds.

"Let's sit." She said and led him by his hand towards the table. There they sat down and she took out her wand.

Giles raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Yet when she pointed it at his bare hand, he squirmed. "Is-is it- safe.. is it.. I mean – for you? Won't it-...?" Actually he was more concerned about his own safety, more precisely about keeping his hand, not that he didn't trust her, she had proven that she could do ... stuff... with the thing, good, useful stuff, yet it had never been pointing at any part of his own body before...

"You don't trust me?" She asked, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smile.

"No-no, not- you, it's..." With his right hand he rubbed his forehead nervously. "It's rather that-that thing." He gave the wand a mistrustful look.

Helen laughed. "That _thing_ saved your life, remember?" She said reassuringly.

"Right." He still glared at the wand and his body was sort of wincing away, he held his hand outstretched to her only very unwillingly. "It- never- are you sure it's wise to use it on-on persons? You see the wound isn't that bad, I could probably just..."

She silenced him with a stern look, then held his hand firmly, tapped her wand at the wounds and spoke quietly: "_Episkey_."

Giles closed his eyes tightly, felt a tickling on his hand, but didn't dare to look. She repeated the spell once more, then let his hand go.

"Looks good. How does it feel? Mr. Giles?"

When he finally opened his eyes again, she was looking expectantly with raised eyebrows, but he could tell she was suppressing a laugh. He looked at his hand, expecting to see the burns there, but there was nothing. The skin was fully healed and one would have to search very carefully for any trace of a scar.

"It will go away, the scar, give it a few days."

Giles frowned and took another look. "I... I don't _see_ any scar." He said slowly in an astonished voice.

Helen took his hand again and leaned closer over it, so did he, their heads only a few inches from each other. With a finger she drew a gentle line over his hand. "You see? Here, that's where the skin got closed by the spell."

"Hm." He replied, but he didn't really hear what she said, nor was he looking at his hand. He was starring down at her face, so close below his own, and his heartbeat got faster. He was afraid that she might somehow notice, feel it, as she held his hand.

"It will disappear though. The important thing is that the wound is clean and closed now." She said, still examining his hand, not letting go of it.

_Good job_, she thought, _at least something I still _can_ do._ The hand really looked good, the scar was hardly noticeable and should vanish in two or three days time. It was very thin, and ran from below the index finger across the palm, crossed the head line and faded away on the Luna mount, or was it the Neptune mount? She frowned trying to remember, and didn't notice that her finger was still stroking over the scar, enjoying the touch. _His hand is so handsome_, she thought, _quite large, compared with mine anyway_... For a second she stretched out her hand wholly and held it above his, just out of curiosity, without touching, and satisfied she found out that his was almost twice as large. Well, almost. By all means her whole fist would fit in his hand if needed... He could probably cover her cheeks only with the palms of his hand if he held her face...

And there it was. _Vienna. The apartment. Giles' lips laid upon hers_, her stomach made the familiar jump and as if she got burnt by something she immediately pulled her hand back a little.

The movement woke Giles from his own thoughts.

He had been observing her face bowing over his hand, her features, her expression, anxious whether she realized that his heart had been beating at an alarming rate. He noticed her small finger caressing, no, retracing the tiny invisible scar and something inside him wanted to react to the touch that felt so delightful. His head was unconsciously approaching hers, he could smell her hair, some pleasant scent though he couldn't quite determine what it was. His lips could almost touch her forehead and he had to close his eyes to regain self-control.

_Why was this happening?_ He thought, confused, unsure, insecure. _WHAT was actually going on?_

Then he sensed a slight movement and quickly righted himself on his chair, feeling embarrassed, but she wasn't looking into his face, but at his hand still, although she wasn't holding it anymore, and surprised he saw that she was blushing. Oh no, he was panicking inwardly. Did she see before? Did she notice anything?

She smiled tensely, then said: "Like I said, it will look as good as new in a day or two."

"Thank you." He answered, pretending to be observing his hand properly. "Would you... do you fancy a cup of tea?" Now _that _was beyond lame. _It's late, we've very nearly got killed couple of minutes ago by gas, she had to tend to my wound hand and I've been sniffing at her hair, so having tea with me is probably the last thing she'd want now..._

"Why- yes, that would be just... perfect right now." She answered and leaned relaxed back on her chair, but then she straightened up. "Oh, shall I help you?"

"No, no, it's fine." He got up and vanished in his office putting on water for the tea. He returned with yet empty cups.

"About-eh... Angel... I... once again I'm sorry about that whole thing..."

Giles shook his head. "We don't have to talk about it anymore. I do hope you know better now." He said in a soft voice. "And-uh, he is – a good vampire now, Buffy tells me he had been cursed and since then he has got his soul back, so that beside the demon in him there is-uh... a human, I suppose, it's rather interesting, I've never heard of any soul-having vampire before, it'd be worthy to spend some time with research on the matter I guess..."

She nodded.

Then Giles furrowed his eyebrows. "Earlier, back downstairs, when you saw Angel, you did cast a spell, but nothing happened..."

"Yes. It's very strange-"

"And then Angel said that it won't work..."

"Hm, Darla said the same to me."

"I didn't know that wizard's magic is powerless against vampires..."

"It isn't. Usually."

"Oh? Then how-?"

"I'm not sure, I haven't fought vampires ever before, but there are accounts on wizards fighting them, and even killing them."

"So how do you explain then that you can't harm them? Could it be because of your loss of powers?"

Helen blushed. Again the delicate topic. "I don't know... I had the feeling it rather was somehow connected with this place, the Hellmouth. It's the way Darla said it, she said – _you can't fight us _here."

"Hm. Right. Besides, she couldn't have known of your-your ... handicap I suppose." He gave her a stealthy look, feeling a little uncomfortable. Fortunately the tea kettle whistled and he went into his office to get the tea for them.

He returned with the pot and poured some into their cups, and decided to change the subject.

"So, how is-uh Hogwarts? Is it very different for you to teach at Sunnydale High after that?"

Helen was a little surprised by the question, a distant warning occurred to her that he shouldn't be asking this. "Well, there is a difference, but I'd say that it has less to do with the fact that these are muggle students and those were wizards rather than with the different kinds of school. You see, Hogwarts is a-a boarding school, students arrive in September and they stay until the end of the school year. They might go home over the Christmas Holidays, but apart from that short break they're always there, day and night, ten months a year, seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day. As are the teachers. It's a ... sort of a home."

"Hm, I'm not sure whether I find it-uh really appealing rather deterrent." Giles said, imagining masses of students evading a library every day, at weekends and holidays, touching and maltreating the precious books, and him not being able to supervise them all...

"It has its charm, I'd say. Besides, it's been like this for hundreds of years."

"Yes, I read so in the book you gave me, the castle must be very impressive."

"It is."

Giles nodded. "Is it true that it is impossible for a non-wizard to visit? To enter it?" He asked curiously.

She smiled. "You wouldn't find it. It is not visible to muggles."

"Oh." A sad and embarrassed smile appeared on his face that was so adorable...

"What were you doing before you came to Sunnydale?" She asked him. "Working for the Council?"

"No, no. Not-eh... quite. All council members, well almost all of them have other jobs. I was the curator at the British Museum."

"Really?" She exclaimed. Then she remembered something. "So you're that Mr. Giles!"

Giles didn't quite follow.

"You had collected all the spectacular pieces in Southern America and made the museum's collection on the occults the largest in the world." She said admiringly, recollecting reading the according article in the Times several years ago.

Giles however smiled quite bitterly. "That was my father."

She raised her eyebrows. "Was it?"

"Yes, he was the curator before me. When he retired I was assigned at the post."

"Oh. I didn't know."

He sipped out of his cup. Helen sensed his discomfort and was desperate to find something to say.

"Did you like it, the job at the Museum?"

"Well, II didn't _dislike_ it, but it wasn't exactly what I had been hoping for. I couldn't do things the way I really wanted... most of the time."

"I see."

"Although my father officially was gone, it – he – never really has stepped out entirely, he..." _He never trusted me that I could do it properly ... that I could to it other way than him but still well, or even better_... "He was very popular among the-eh... staff of the museum." He fell silent, not sure of whether or how exactly to put in words what it was like then when he started at the museum and every single of his decisions was met with reluctance, even defiance, and it took him three months to find out that every one did discuss things with his omnipresent father rather than with him. This was very easy since the old man had been – as a manifestation of honour from the Minister of Culture – granted the possibility to use his office further as long as he wanted which he naturally did.

Helen was sensible enough to notice that there was some father-son conflict in the whole matter and decided to drop it.

"But, how did you hear about my father and the collection?" Giles asked.

"There was an article, in Times, some eight-nine years ago."

"Right." He frowned, then he recalled the strange wizarding newspaper. "I-I just- didn't know you knew those."

"What those?"

"Well – Times, you being a-a witch."

"Well, we're still living in this world." She smiled.

"Of course, sorry."

They both drank from their cups.

"But – how did you get the paper at Hogwarts then when no muggle – and therefore no delivery man – can enter the castle?" He asked slowly and triumphantly as if posing an unsolvable riddle, sure he discovered some flaw in all that presumed anti-muggle high-security-myth.

Again she felt slightly disturbed by the question but didn't quite know why. There was something before... _How did he know at all that I was teaching at Hogwarts? I don't remember telling him... That I was a student there, yes, but about the teaching... ach, whatever... doesn't matter now._

"No, I wasn't at Hogwarts at that time, it was somewhere else, I was living with my husband then, in Scotland, quite privately. Not exactly among muggles, but not secluded either..." _Actually that's a good question about the Hogwarts-delivery, I've never thought of it before, and Dumbledore always had issues of some muggle magazines in his office, like "Decorations" or "Tinker-fun for your home" or... _she frowned, her eyes wide opened recalling something_... a Vogue ? ! Yes, I saw it, right there on the small wooden side table in his office, right next to the phoenix-stand... _She shook her head to banish the peculiar memory.

They were drinking their tea in silence for a while, the tiredness taking hold of them little by little, so that they didn't feel uncomfortable by not talking.

When he saw that her cup was empty too, he stood up. "It's getting late." He said, unsure how to not make it sound as if he was eager to part.

"I insist though on driving you home this time."

"..."

"No, I do. Otherwise... well, it's safer."

She blushed, knowing he meant to say _wiser_, to prevent any further encounters of hers with vampires of which she wouldn't tell him... But she caught his half-earnest look, just before he smiled at her sheepishly, and she knew that he didn't hold the incident against her any more. That was forgiven.

And so it was. Giles drove her home, held the car door open for her, then they said "Good night" to each other and he left.

She felt relieved, happy even. _The things were good. All in order after all_, she thought, while staying at her front door, watching his car leave.

She entered her living room and heard someone clearing his throat.

"Bloody...!"

"Don't tell us you forgot AGAIN? !" There were the faces of George and Ron Weasley, looking angrily at her from the fireplace.

"Seriously, we think you're having an affair." George said touchily, in a tone suggesting that she was doing something forbidden, illegal.

"I'm not."

"So you're not going out with the Watcher?" Ron asked

"No." Helen said in a casual voice, walking over to the sofa, laying her shoulder bag on the coffee table.

George: "Not yet, you mean."

Helen gave him a nasty look. "Look, I'm sorry I kept you waiting, something came up."

"A Watcher?"

"Stop it, George."

"Have you asked him out?"

"No-"

"Not yet." Ron grinned.

George: "You shouldn't wait too long, my dear. I mean, you aren't that young anymore, and before you know it you'll look old and wrinkled and..."

"And what?"

Ron: "... and no one will want to marry you."

"? ! Who's talking about marriage here? !"

George: "You don't want to marry him?"

"..."

Ron: "We know – not yet."

George: "Hm, anyway, under no circumstances, don't tell him that you're twice a widow, I hear that does scare some blokes off... or at least wait until you have kids..."

"..."

Ron: "Is he rich?"

"Can we NOT talk about him, please?"

The brothers exchanged sad looks, then sighed, giving up the teasing.

"Actually, we're here to announce a very important event, that is about to take place in two months." Ron said solemnly.

Helen raised her eyebrows suspiciously.

George continued. "I don't suppose you've got the invitation just yet, but it should arrive in a day or two."

"An invitation?"

"Yes." Ron said excited. "A wedding invitation."

"A wedding?" She repeated, slightly taken aback, looking from the one brother to the other.

George straightened his head up, with his nose high in the fire. "Yes, I am about to enter into the state of holy matrimony."

"You? !"

"Yes."

She decided to have her revenge and tease George back, asking in an innocent voice, pretending to have no idea and being entirely caught surprised by this. "Whom are you marrying?"

George glared at her. "Well- Morgan le Fay!" He cried out indignantly. "Who do you think I'm marrying, dimwit? !"

"Morgan? Isn't she a little too old for you, George? I didn't know you fancy older women... I could have fixed you up with someone..." Ron was giggling. "Alright, alright, I'm not as good at this as you, George... that's because I'm a better person..." She said smugly, then smiled at him widely, happy for him. "Give my best congratulations to Angelina... it is her, right?" She asked cautiously.

George looked at her through narrowed eyes. "The wedding is on August 31st, at the Burrow. Wear something nice. Not black."

She opened her mouth.

"- nor dark green." He answered her unasked question.

"Hang on, 31st August... well, that's just perfect. The school starts on September 2nd..." She nagged.

"So what?"

"You really couldn't have put it two days earlier? I'll have to start the school year with a horrid jet-leg."

"Well, I am sorry," George said in a tone that made it obvious that he was anything but sorry. "It's not my fault you can't apparate long distance anymore like normal people can..."

She went pale, and Ron poked his brother into his side to silence him, as he obviously went too far.

"Sorry." George said quickly. "But I am not changing the date because of you." He continued in a less serious manner.

She didn't answer, but smiled sadly.

"So? Will you come? If I say _pleeeaase_?"

Helen nodded finally. "Of course I'll come. I wouldn't miss it for the world..."

"Great. That's settled then."

The last two weeks of the school year flew by very fast. Everyone has been busy, filling out the school reports, preparing in any way for the long desired holidays, finally tidying up their offices after the earthquake that occurred couple of days before the end of school. That was a very unpleasant experience, but Helen had been told that this being California – it wasn't that uncommon, so she didn't attach any special meaning to it.

She was also occupied with packing her cases, she wanted to leave two days after the last school day for England and spend the summer there.

On the evening of the last day she returned once more to her office to retrieve some last things she had forgotten there. Also she wanted to say good bye to Giles.

She noticed that with every step she made closer to the library she was getting more and more nervous, her face switching constantly between an anticipating smile and a nervous, panicky grin, biting her lip.

She entered the library and froze. Giles was lying on the floor next to the staircase, unconscious. She ran over to him and knelt above him, he was obviously just coming around.

"Are you alright? What happened?" She asked and helped him to get up.

He put on his glasses and looked a little disoriented.

"Here, sit." She pulled a chair to him.

"N-no, thanks, it's-it's fine."

"What is going on? Who did this?"

"Uh-Buffy did." He frowned.

Helen looked confused. "Why?" He still wasn't answering, but rubbing his forehead. "Rupert! Talk to me." She urged him, catching his arm as to wake him from his thoughts.

_Rupert?_ For a short moment he wondered whether there was a third person in the room, but then he realized she meant him. She never before called him that... Nobody did.

"Please?" She asked once more.

"Oh, sorry. We-we're in trouble."

"Well _that's_ new." She said boldly.

"There's no time for sarcasm." There he was himself again.

"Sorry."

"We're having an apocalypse."

"Hm." _O-kay_. If these words had come from anyone else but him she would probably just roll her eyes and move on, but this... was serious.

Giles told her about the Pergamum Codex and its Prophecy, saying that Buffy would fight the Master tonight, who was some kind of a vampire king, but stuck under the ground. In that fight she would loose and die and he would be free.

_Prophecy, urghh, _she thought, _how I hate those things_...

But there was more into it. Freeing the Master would also open the Hellmouth, thus tearing down the barrier between this dimension and the hell dimension below them. Giles wanted to prevent Buffy from facing the Master, but he got knocked out instead. Helen had to admire the girl's bravery, knowing she was going die.

In that moment Xander and Willow came in, they were looking for Buffy. Reluctantly Giles decided to tell them the whole story.

To say that they didn't take the news well would be an understatement. Actually, Willow seemed to be handling it rather well, she looked devastated, yes, and sad, but she stayed calm. Xander on the other hand shouted angrily at Giles for having Buffy let go, he said, he wouldn't care a damn about an apocalypse, the only think that mattered to him was to save Buffy, and so he left, determined to find her.

The three of them, under Giles' lead, began to search for any clues that would reveal to them where the Hellmouth would open and what exactly its opening would cause.

They were just contemplating about possible places for the Hell to open, when they heard someone screaming and running footsteps. The screams reminded Giles and Helen on something. They exchanged glum looks, and as the shrieking sounded again, they remembered. The image of Cordelia Chase staying on the stage in the auditorium and performing a song immediately popped into Helen's mind, and indeed, the dark haired May Queen came in running and shouting only seconds later. She was breathing heavily, pointing at the corridor, and began to barricade to entrance. They all stared at her until she was able to speak.

"Guys – monsters – there – outside – following me – why are they always – after me! Help me!" She was yelling.

Giles went over to her.

"Please, calm down and tell us, slowly, what happened."

"Jeez, are you as slowed as you look? There!" She pointed through the small round window of the library door into the halls. There, a few... quite some... actually quite many vampires were walking towards them...

Then the Hell broke loose.

The vampires were coming from everywhere. And if the four of them wondered initially, why the demons would want to gather in the library, the question was soon answered, when several green, cheap looking tentacles began to emerge from the raised ground just in the middle of the room.

They were fighting on all fronts, with every weapon they could grab. Willow was fighting among the bookracks, hitting the tentacles with books, Giles, below them, was trying to cut the tentacles and the heads off with an axe, and Cordelia was quite passionately guarding the main door, biting the vampires' arms that were appearing through the small broken window, saying: "See how _you_ like it!"

"_Sectumsempra!_" Helen shouted for maybe twentieth time, her wand pointing on the odd kraken, she was sure that it didn't work before just because she must have missed any body part of the monster.

Desperate, she decided in a hurry to try something else. She conjured up a set of knives in the air, just above what seemed to be the centre of the kraken: "_Oppugno!_" She waved her wand in order to make the knives attack the thing. They indeed seemed to be storming down against it, yet in the last second they all turned up and dispersed into every direction – one of them missing Cordelia only by inches – then they got stuck in the walls and in the racks.

"What is wrong with the bloody wand? !" Helen paused, inspecting the wooden stick, for a moment.

"Helen!" She raised her head in surprise. Giles was waving with his free hand towards the bookshelves. There Willow got entangled by a tentacle.

She hurried to her. There were no other weapons near, so with the rest of her strength she conjured up a sword and managed to cut Willow free from the tight embrace of the monster.

Then a loud crack could be heard and something dark fell down through the ceiling and impaled on the broken table in the middle of the room.

They all raised their heads towards it to see a body with a distorted vampire face just before it turned into dust, leaving a skeleton spread across the remains of their favourite research-table.

Staring at the bizarre picture they noticed only after a few moments, that the kraken had retreated, probably going back to where it emerged from.

It seemed to be over. As to confirm it, soon Xander, Angel and Buffy came, all looking a little shabby, but otherwise sound.

"Buffy?" Giles walked towards her. "Buffy?"

She was looking at the skeleton, and didn't hear him at first: "Oh, sorry, it's just been a really weird day."

In short version they reported to each other about their experiences of the evening, then – after Giles to everyone's initial disbelief had stated that he didn't like the library very much any more – it was decided that they should go to the Bronze, have a dance.

Half an hour later Giles was sitting at a round table in the club, the kids along with Angel were enjoying themselves, dancing and singing along, trying so to forget the previous horrors of the almost-apocalypse. He was tired. And happy, watching his Slayer in the crowd, he felt so proud of Buffy. She's been through some terrible things tonight, yet there she was, standing, holding hands with Angel. She had died, at the hands of the Master, and yet she found the strength, the courage to face the vampire again, after Xander and Angel had revived her. And then she saved the world, just like that. He was smiling in the direction of the strange couple.

Helen had gone to the washroom a good while ago. He was already starting to worry. When she came back, she looked very pale and was holding her green scarf, now all soppy, upon her nose. He noticed dark stains on it and realized that she had been bleeding.

"I'mb sorry, I think I'd better..." She said in a muffled voice and took her sweater, then pointed with her head towards the exit.

He got up immediately. "Of course, I-I'll drive you." He caught her elbow to lead her out. She shook her head vehemently.

"No! Blease, do stay!" She said. "You should celebrate, have sombe fund here, the mbusic is... ndice... very mbodernd... and ndoisy..., have a dance with the others..."

He glared at her and offered her a moment to imagine him dancing rampantly in his tweed suite, to this horrid noise without any definable rhythm, alongside Xander, Cordelia...

She understood his look.

He gave her a gentle push towards the door again, then waved at the others until Willow noticed him, and indicated her that they were leaving.

Sitting in the car, she tried to sound jolly, cheerfully, though her nasal voice was complicating the intention. It was embarrassing to her that he should see and hear her like this.

"So-uh, do you returnd oftend, back to England?" She asked him casually.

"Well, I've only arrived at the start of the school year, so, no, I haven't been back since."

"What about the summber holidays?"

"I-I-m staying here, I have already a list of things I'd like to do some research on, I am a little behind. Are you going?"

"Oh, I amb going back over summber, to visit sombe-uh friends, mbaybe do sombe trekking sombe place ndice..."

"But you'll be back in September?" He asked and his hazel eyes peered at her in all earnest.

Her heart jumped a little, she felt something moving in her stomach, probably the butterflies. She had long forgotten that sensation. She gulped, before answering: "Yes. I will."

_AN: Thanks for reading. Even greater thanks for reviewing :) pls. leave some comment, how you find/like/dislike this. I'll try to update soon._


	13. Chapter 13: The Summer Holidays

Chapter 13

The summer holidays

_A/N: This time a more HP-universe-centred chapter. Hope you enjoy._

The holidays finally came and Giles found himself missing the school. Well, that was neither a shocking nor new attitude in his case, yet the reasons this time were slightly different than they were back then in his youth.

He could still use the library during the summer, but... to be honest... – and he would let no one hear this – he didn't quite see the point of it, sitting there for two months, all alone... knowing that no one else would enter the room, no one would come to borrow books, to just have a chat, to drink a cup of tea with him, to mend his hand after he had cut himself on the blade of a new sword that he had found left among the racks after the fight against the kraken. No, she wouldn't be there until September...

Well, the first days of the holidays were hard for Giles. They – Angel, him, Willow and Xander – did bury the skeleton of the Master at one of the Sunnydale cemeteries, at least one major evil was gone. After that he was supposed to do some systematic research on several matters. He tried working in the library. Didn't work. At the slightest noise he would raise his head towards the door, awaiting to see her walk in, scrunching up her scarf, smiling shyly... He tried researching at home. Didn't work either. He kept wondering whether he should return to the library... What if she came nevertheless? After all she didn't say, she'd be gone during the _whole_ summer... What if she was still in Sunnydale and desperately needed a book on something important and would go to the library to get it or to ask for an advice and he wouldn't be there... Every now and then when he caught himself once again thinking of her, he would blush and start to wonder about the strange phenomenon, about the impact she had upon him, trying to rationalise the feelings that were beginning to raise towards her. He wondered how a single person, one he did know so little about, could so completely throw his working manners upside down.

Yet after a week or so he was able to concentrate again fully and go on with his readings and was glad to notice that the days were passing by in a much faster way, the longed end of holidays approaching in much faster steps than when he was just brooding about her, waiting in vain for her to appear.

In July, as every year, he received an invitation from his mother, calling him home to celebrate her birthday within the large Giles-clan, but, as every year since twenty years now, he ignored the letter, though not without regret. He longed to see her, but he didn't want to meet his father. He hoped that one day he would be ready to face him again, but he wasn't sure. There were too many things that he would feel he had to say to him, or rather shout at him, things he was blaming him for, due to that for now he felt there was no good in returning home. A disgusting argument with his father surely wasn't what his mother would like to have if he finally came home, and Giles knew that such would emerge between the two men with certainty, if he did.

Helen's thoughts were revolving around him just as much, though she had had a busy summer too. She visited few of her acquaintances and friends, the little Ted Lupin, who was now over two years old, living with his grandmother and doing very well, she took a weekend to take a look at Hogwarts, which had been entirely repaired and every part of the castle reconstructed to the form it had before the Battle. Professor McGonagall asked her once again if she wouldn't like to return and resume her former teaching position, but Helen refused. Though it was nice to be there for a while and Minerva had been very kind to her – in her very own strict, dry, pointy, yet all in all well meaning way – she still could feel the stealthy looks from others, the whispers behind her back as they gossiped about what she's done and judged her action, though knowing nothing about it many were condemning it, shaking their heads in incomprehension. She knew she wouldn't feel comfortably staying here. Besides, she was rather looking forward to going back to Sunnydale...

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and George were the only people who knew about Buffy as the Slayer. Despite Helen's initial belief George did blabber it out to them.

"I must however ask you not to tell anyone else, it's really important, not because of me, but for their sake." She was saying, as she, Harry, Ginny and George were sitting in a cafe in London.

"Of course." Harry assured her after she had told them yet about the connection between the Ministry and the Council of which they knew nothing.

"It might be worthy though to have a look whether that department is still there." Ginny suggested. "I could ask our father..."

"Hm. That would mean to tell him as well, I'd rather not. Unless you can ask him in some unsuspicious way..."

"Alright. I'll think of something. Do you remember where it was, at the Ministry?"

"No... not quite... It might have been on the same level as the Department of Mysteries. Or one level below... or one above... or two... or wasn't it right next to the Department for International Cooperation? That would make sense, but... wait, no, I think it was on level nine... but I can't remember for sure."

"Merlin, your memory is as leaky as a sieve, here, have some jelly." Said George, munching, pushing his bowl towards Helen. She glanced at him, then pushed the bowl away.

"I'll ask dad, don't worry. I can come up with some story about "WC-matters" I suppose." Ginny said grinning.

"Thanks." Helen replied. "So, how are-eh... Ron and-eh... Hermione?" She asked, trying to sound as lightly and casual as possible.

Ginny and Harry exchanged nervous looks. "Fine. Fine, they're both well, have a lot to do at the time, Hermione studying for her summer exams, doing a summer school at the Ministry, Ron..." She gave George a short look. He didn't look back, but finished the sentence:

"Ron is working at Wizard Wheezes," and cleaning his jelly-bowl empty with a spoon, he continued, "so that I can sit here and have a chat with you." He smiled widely. "We agreed that he should fill in for me until the wedding, with me having so much to organize, to plan, being in all this stress of buying the right clothes, the fitting cufflinks, finding the right music and so one." George said and – his bowl empty now – he leaned himself comfortably back on his chair, so that Helen somehow found the gesture very much in contrast to his words and had to suppress a smile.

"Is she- is Hermione ... you know... last time we met in the fireplace she at last said a whole sentence to me... is she still... you know... about it?" She asked then in an earnest tone.

"You mean bitchy?" George, always very open, completed her question. "Well, since we don't talk about it very often, she doesn't get much chance – you see we finally have our own lives to live here, so we don't need to talk about yours all the time."

Helen frowned, trying to comprehend all parts of the answer.

Ginny glared at him, then continued in a tentative voice: "She's not mad at-"

"Good." Helen said stubbornly. "Because she has no right to be either."

"Well, that's precisely the twist in her thinking you see, _she_ took it as a personal offence that _you_ tried to blow y- AUAA – WHAT are you doing? !" George yelled and several muggle guests turned their heads towards their table. Helen and Harry smiled brightly at them, while Ginny, who had kicked her brother's leg under the table, and George were arguing in whisper:

"Are you insane? ! That hurt!" George was rubbing his leg with one hand. "How am I suppose to dance at my wedding-"

"George, honestly, can't you watch your mouth for once? !"

"What did I say? !"

"It's not the _what_, but the _how_! It's insensitive!"

"What? ! Common, she's used to it..."

"Just shut up." Then she turned to Helen. "She's just still having troubles trying to understand... why... anyone would-eh... you know..."

Harry nodded and hurried to add. "But she's coming around. And she was very pleased when you asked for the vampire books at Christmas."

"You mean smug." George countered disdainfully. Ginny gave him a warning look again.

"It's not for her to _try to understand_." Helen said, a little angrily, yet Harry could hear a trace of frustration in her voice. He knew she was sad being despised by Hermione.

They weren't really close all together with her. George was the really close friend of her, Harry knew that. She and the left Weasley twin spent some time together right after the battle. A strange friendship, Harry thought, he could hardly imagine two people that were more different in their characters than them, or two people he would think less likely to tie that strong a bond. It was actually fascinating to observe them. Harry often got astonished at how rude George would talk to her, always speaking his mind, and yet Harry learned after a while, that George was the only one, from whom she didn't mind.

"You know what? Let's leave it at that. You can try to talk to her at the wedding." Harry said, appeasing. "George, we have some suits-hunting to do." He stood up and so did George.

"Ladies, you'll excuse us." He bowed and winked at them, then turned to Helen before leaving. "See you in a couple of weeks. I already told mum you'll be coming a few days earlier to help, thus she probably already have you scheduled for diverse terrible preparation assistance tasks, so – don't disappoint her. Bye." And off they were.

Helen and Ginny went to do their own shopping and were indeed successful in buying some stuff for the both of them and a little dress for Ginny that she wanted to change into after the ceremony. When they finally reached the Leaky Cauldron, the spot they were to part at, Ginny said: "So, here we are. And well in time."

Helen smiled somewhat tensed.

"What are you going to do now?" Ginny asked.

"Eh... back to the apartment, I suppose, I'll probably grab me some dinner on my way..."

"No, I mean-eh... what are your plans for the rest of the summer? Will you be staying in London until the wedding or-?"

"Oh. No, no. I'm leaving in two days actually. I want to do some treks in the north, I've picked some routes that should keep me busy for the next few weeks."

"Nice." Ginny nodded.

"And what about you? Are you staying at the Burrow, helping?"

"Yes. Mum is already very jumpy. And then I am one of the bridesmaids together with Angelina's two sisters and Katie, so first I have to go the fittings – they're having our dresses made for us at some muggle tailor somewhere here in London, and then I of course have to participate in planning the-eh, you know, bachelorette-party or whatever..." She rolled her eyes, but Helen could tell from the look in them, that she was a little curious and excited about it too, yet she pretended not having noticed:

"Hm, sounds... boring, definitely terribly boring." She shook her head.

"Yes. I'll bore you with the details when you come to the Burrow." Ginny smiled, then hesitantly and a little clumsily gave Helen a hug, who was rather surprised. "Take care, on your trekking." She waved at her, then turned and disappeared in the shabby looking entrance of the wizarding pub.

Ginny's been really kind, all the time. In fact – leaving George aside – his little sister was the only one who _didn't_ judge her at all, she always had this understanding, even encouraging look in her eyes, when talking to her, that made Helen always feel a little better about herself. There was no pity in it, that she could stand even less than all the nonunderstanding headshakes. No, it was rather like an impulse, a positive push to move on, to get over it all and start anew. She was grateful for that look.

And then there was George. From the time after the battle, and even more after the thing she's done over a year ago, George has been acting – unconsciously – as some kind of a mirror to Helen. He would always say things exactly the way they were, lifting the euphemizing veil she used to put upon them. In a way she needed him just for this, to tell her exactly what she was doing and the reasons why she was doing things, because now and then she tended to suppress or chose to ignore some of her true motives or would invent some false ones and adopt those. Then George, in his humorous way, but without sparing her, would put the things in the right place, adjust her twisted reality.

The treks had been a great catharsis to Helen. She spent five most relaxed weeks up in Scotland, wandering around from one hill to another, from one guesthouse to another. During the long walks she managed to push aside any complex thoughts, enjoying the scenery around, walking at her own speed rate, not minding anything or anyone but the path ahead of her. The time flew by very fast in this manner. As the day was approaching when she was supposed to leave and take off for the Burrow, she was becoming more and more nervous, worried about seeing so many people...

But there was one more thing she needed to do before heading to the south...

On the day of the wedding, George Weasley woke up in the bedroom of his apartment in London in the early morning. He went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, exhaling in excitement. "So, Georgie, today's the big day." He grinned at his reflection, then frowned a little, as if remembering something, then he smiled sadly, a sudden realization occurring to him. "Two years. It took me over two years, until yesterday..." He talked to the mirror. "Yesterday I did not think of you for a moment, Fred, finally... Isn't it funny? I hope you can forgive me, with all the fuss going on here now..." He was whispering now. "How I wish you were here today..." After a moment of silence he continued in a wondering, casual voice: "On the other hand, if you _were_ here, you'd probably _kill_ me for marrying Angelina, she was _your_ ex-girlfriend after all..." His voice then shivered again, when saying: "But still, I'd have taken my chances..." For a while he was observing his reflection, as if waiting for it to do something, to move, to talk on its own, to reply. When it didn't he shook his head, murmured "Pathetic wimp" to himself and left the room.

Sitting at his breakfast table, memories of the first summer without Fred, two years ago, the summer he spent with Helen, driving and running and wandering through the country, popped into his mind. Particularly he kept recalling the one talk they had while staying at her "blue villa" as she pompously called it, though it was nothing but a little blue house on the top of a cliff at a shore somewhere in Scotland, where she used to live with Claudius Malfoy, her first husband, until his death. But somehow George liked it there, it was a beautiful place, sunny, calm, with but a slight breeze, the smell of the ocean, a shore to reach within ten minutes...

_They had been avoiding the subject in the first weeks. It was too painful. George seemed to be able to fight – or rather to suppress – the grief only with his humour at first, only later he managed to confront himself with the pain of the loss itself. They were lazing around at the veranda, reading or doing each their own stuff, when he suddenly spoke. "May I ask you something?"_

_Helen stiffened. She knew somehow exactly what was coming. George never asked whether he _might ask_ something, he'd ask, bluntly and very directly. She raised her head and tried to smile casually anyway._

"_Does it ever get better?" He wasn't looking at her, but through his sunglasses he was starring against the sunny sky. "Will it... ever... I mean _you_ do have some experience in this field..." He tried it with a joke, but then his voice shivered. "How did you get over it? Will it ever stop hurting? How did you...back then...?"_

_He meant Claudius of course. Claudius who died in the room just behind them..._

_In a flashback she was there again, in that horrible, Shakespearean scene, six years ago: she holding him in her arms, sobbing, he with blood all over his face and in his beautiful long blond hair, whispering to her what would be his last words: "It- was... worth...it... you're safe now." A last look at her, a weak version of his charming arrogant cheeky smile upon his lips that she loved so much, then he was gone._

"_So many questions." She smiled nervously. "How did I indeed? And – have I really?... I suppose so... It was like..." She spoke slowly, weighing every word. "...one day... there was this horrid realization in my mind - _I can't remember thinking of him yesterday... _That was the first day-eh... of which I was aware... when the thought of him ... or of his death didn't occur to me at any point of that day... when I didn't feel the little itch of sorrow at a – even a very short one – memory of him... And those days of-eh... _no remembrance_... they were very rare at first, but with the time passing by those became... more frequent... the pain wouldn't lessen though, whenever I'd think of it... it just doesn't happen as often as in the start... I'm sorry, it's probably not what you wanted to hear... It was... for a long time it hurt... there aren't actual words to describe it, though the pain seems so clear, so... perfect, the strike so precisely struck... It hurt so much, as you can feel it now for yourself, with Fred gone and-"_

"_like your innards are getting torn apart...yeah, you read about it, hear about it talking, how the heart is broken and..., yet I always thought it's just a cheesy crap from old ladies and corny writers, and then... boom, it's there, right in my chest, ripping it into pieces..." He was saying in sort of a disbelieving, amazed voice._

"_Yes, it was... horrible, and fascinating at the same time..." She remembered herself sitting on the ground in the living room, pressing her right hand against her breast where the heart would be, trying to calm down the heartache, and wondering, how it was possible, that something ... like that ... something unseizable, immaterial ... could cause such clear physical pain, that was harder to endure than anything she had experienced before._

_He looked at her in shock._

_She smiled patiently. "I know this will sound much cheesier from me than from Dumbledore, but... it is true. That it hurts only shows that the person meant a great deal to you, that you loved him very much... Someone wrote once that in fact when it came to it he would easier part from his joyful days than give away the unhappy ones... There _is_ something into it..."_

_George sighed. "You and your creepy books again. Don't you read any comedies?" He shook his head. _

At the Burrow the excitement was high. Everyone was busy fulfilling Molly's orders – or trying to get out of her way. Helen was helping carrying the dishes outside into the tent where the feast should take place after the marriage ceremony. She was just back in the kitchen, getting the next load when Ginny came downstairs, in her dressing gown, looking very tired. She threw a guilty look at her mother, who was placing last decorations on one of the wedding cakes.

"Oh, Ginny, how very kind of you to finally grace us with your presence. I guess you remember _you_ were suppose to be doing this, but... don't you worry, since the rest of us had nothing to do..." She was saying with her poignant sarcasm, not looking at her daughter.

"I'm sorry, mum... It got late yesterday. I'm here now. What should I do?"

"Well, I'm done with the cake, you help Helen with the dishes, that is – unless you feel you need to go back to bed..."

Ginny rolled her eyes and whispered to Helen. "I'm going to pay for this for the next two months."

"At least, my dear." Ginny winced at the voice of her mother, she hadn't expected her to hear the words. Mrs. Weasley then placed the cake on another table, next to the others, and hurried out of the kitchen to take care of some other task.

"So, you came quite late yesterday. Or I should say – today. I heard you, it must have been ... what ... three o'clock in the morning?" Helen asked the red haired girl with a curious amusement in her voice.

"Half past four actually, it was already getting light outside..." Ginny answered, looking sheepishly.

"So?"

"It was a blast!" Ginny got excited. "Angelina's sisters are ... probably the craziest women I ever met... we had so much fun, they had prepared everything, they even got this gorgeous young man, he pretended to be a plumber ... and then he began to throw away his clothes... then Carla, the older sister put on some really weird music and ... and ... he was a stripper!" Ginny blushed, a little embarrassed now about her excitement.

"A what? She wouldn't dare!" They turned around to see the shocked face of George Weasley, just entering the kitchen.

"..." Ginny stared at him in horror.

"Ripper! Ripper. Jack The. Look it up... it-eh... it's a... tradition. Among muggle girls... when parting with freedom." Helen tried to save the moment.

"Jack the Ripper?"

"Yes. They-äh... they invite some... male friend to-to impersonate the – fully dressed – Jack the Ripper, the-eh... infamous murderer of-eh thee-eh ... fancy women... and then they-eh, the girls, they all dress up, as such... fancy women, and they sacrifice – ritually – the bride-to-be-"

"Helen?" Ginny looked at her disturbed. "Stop talking. Please."

George was furrowing his eyebrows. "What's a _fancy woman_?"

Ginny and Helen exchanged questioning looks. At that moment fortunately Molly Weasley returned to her kitchen.

"George! At last! Your father is waiting for you outside, you need to help them with the other tent."

George gave them one last suspicious glance, then went out to assist his father and brothers with magically unpacking, placing and fixing the large tent, in which the ceremony would take place. Afterwards the chairs would be removed and the band would arrange itself at one end, leaving the rest of the tent as a dance floor.

Several hours later the big moment came at last. Helen was just leaving her guestroom, where she got dressed, when a hand grabbed her and pulled her into the next room, closing the door behind them.

"What the-?" She whispered angrily, turning around to see George. He looked pale and scared, his eyes opened wide. He was already dressed up, only the jacket laid still on the bed.

Helen glared at him, then sighed.

"Don't tell me." She said in an unimpressed tone. "You're having second thoughts." He was scratching his head, nodding, not daring to look at her.

"Ach, George, you don't have time for this. In ten minutes-"

"Should I really... I mean... the whole rest of my life?" He raised his head now, his eyes pleading her for an answer.

She knew she had to be careful with what she would say now, she didn't want him to panic more. She had to try:

"Will it help when I tell you, that Angelina is probably asking Katie Bell the very same questions _right_ now?"

He looked at her horrified. "How is that supposed to help me? !"

She gave him an apologetic look. "Don't know. Sorry... What I meant ... everyone is having these doubts before the "deed", it's perfectly normal."

"But-"

"No, you CAN'T know whether you'll spend your whole life with her, no one can. But-" She went over to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. "But you've known her long enough now to tell, to hope... that you could stay with her forever DESPITE every single of her annoying habits that only you know of."

George nodded in a little surprise at the prospect.

"And if it doesn't work out and you end up divorced in a year, well, at least your aunt Muriel will have something to tattle about."

He grinned. She was about to leave.

"I miss Fred." He said. She turned around at him, with sadness in her eyes.

"Yes. I imagine many do on this day of all days." They smiled gently at each other, then she left. On the staircase she ran into Percy who to everyone's surprise was George's best man and who went now to tell George that it was time.

It all went well. Both the groom and the bride looked rather nervous during the ceremony, their faces white as marble, their hands shaking, but as soon as the closing solemn speech of the marriage official was over and they exchanged their first marital kiss, the tension seemed to have fallen off them and they looked nothing but truly happy, hanging on each other's arm, talking relaxed to their friends, receiving congratulations from their families.

Helen was staying in the dining tent, having a snack, observing the happy couple, when Ron greeted her from behind her. "Hello, Helen, nice dress."

She turned around. Hermione was standing next to him, smiling at her, a little reserved, but not wary. "Hi." She greeted her too.

"Hi, you two. When did you arrive? I didn't see you up at the house earlier."

"We apparated only shortly before the ceremony." Hermione answered.

"How was your flight?" Ron asked her curiously. They haven't met yet while she was in England. Ron found the idea of sitting for over 13 hours in a steely box with wings, flying over the Atlantic, very exciting.

Helen smiled. "Thank you, it was... nice."

"I bet. Dad would love to try it out, but mum won't hear of it... Isn't it... awkward for you, to fly with a plane?"

"Well, it's not as strange anymore, I've done it before you see... But I love the look on the face of the airport staff when I check-in with nothing but my pocket-sized purse, on which I used the shrinking spell... flying overseas with no luggage at all... It's fun. They always think you're either awfully rich or really crazy."

"Which you perfectly fulfil, both." They turned around to see George, holding a glass of champagne in one hand, his other arm hand holding tightly his wife.

"Oh, common, George, she's not that rich, are you?" Ron asked curiously.

George shrugged. "Well, but she's certainly awfully crazy. Cheers." He raised his glass towards them, took a sip, then led his wife away from them, to talk yet to another group of their friends and relatives.

"How are you?" Hermione asked her in a low, not unfriendly voice.

"Thank you, I'm fine. What about you? I hear you're doing a summer internship at the Ministry."

"Ah-yes, at the International Cooperation. It's interesting, exciting, maybe I can get a job there when I'm done with the studies."

"Is that what you want?"

"I don't know. Right now I could imagine working there permanently..."

"Hm. Well, I'm sure they'd be happy to have you."

Hermione smiled gratefully.

An awkward silence arose.

"Those books, about vampires, I sent you – where there of any interest to you?"

"Yes, yes. I've been meaning to thank you once more for that. They'd been-eh... very instructive, though as it seems, magic isn't of any use against them there..."

"How comes?"

Helen actually really wasn't eager to talk about it all right now. "I don't know. There's something about the place... my magic won't harm them in any way."

"_What_ magic?" Hermione asked, a subtle sign of a challenge in her tone.

Helen got a little alarmed, but answered hesitantly. "My spells wouldn't hurt them, they had no effect upon them at all."

"Really?"

"The only thing that emerged from my wand were couple of blue sparks and that was it...

it was very disquieting, I scarcely felt so helpless ever... I was... completely powerless against them..."

"Well, that's rather your own fault now, isn't it?" Hermione said, trying to make it sound lightly, like a joke.

Helen looked at her coldly. "That I don't know. It might be about the place there." She said through her teeth. "Hermione, I don't want to argue anymore, nor do I want to be rude."

Hermione shook her head. "I just-"

"No! Leave it. Let it be. It's not for you to judge me."

"I just still can't comprehend-"

"You don't _need_ to comprehend. I've never asked you to. You should stay out of it. It did not concern you, so why are you-"

"If I had stayed out of it, you'd be dead now, Helen." Hermione said rather loud.

Helen looked at her in this strange manner, a faint smile upon her lips, as if saying _there you are, finally_.

"Let's drop it, don't talk of it any more. If you can't leave it, then I won't be seeing you, that you'll understand." She said, nearly pleading.

Hermione looked stubbornly, her lips pressed together. Then Ron returned, telling Hermione Ginny was looking for her.

Hours later the festive mood was rising even higher, if possible. The feast has been a great success, Mrs. Weasley seemed exhausted, but pleased, happy, yet also a little stirred. It still was rather hard for her to see the one twin without the other, they had been inseparable, always together, where there was one, there surely not far away was the other, so that she still now and then caught herself with the question upon her lips _"Where's Fred...?"_ when seeing George arriving, or just wondering which one of the twins he was, thinking that she really should be able to tell them apart by now... before she realized the sad truth. Yes, she had her weak moment tonight, as she had feared, in the late evening, staying in the kitchen, staring out of the window watching everyone dancing outside, enjoying themselves. When they were younger, they used to argue who would marry first, somehow – stupidly – she always imagined them even to marry together.

Finally, way after midnight, when some of the older guests were already leaving and the dancing tent wasn't that crowded anymore, George asked Helen for a dance.

"So, you're having fun? Enjoying the party?"

"Yes, quite so. Although if I hear once more anyone saying to me _Oh, you look so well, Helen, what a surprise to see you, after all that_..."

"Yeah, forget about them. By the way, I'm very certain I told you not to wear black." He glared at her, while they were making slow circles around.

"It's not black, silly. It's dark brown." She shook her head. Indeed, she was wearing a long strapless dress in a very dark shade of brown, partially embroidered with subtle, hardly visible light-coloured lace, and a few stitched little pearls here and there. George pushed her away a little to have a better look. He didn't seem persuaded.

"It's black."

"How are you feeling as a married man?"

"Hm, actually, I don't feel any different."

"Didn't think so."

"I have to wear a ring now, which I'm not used to, but... otherwise... I suppose generally it's a huge improvement to my situation. Imagine, every day I come home from work, there'll be a perfect dinner waiting on the table... and in the mornings someone will bring me the Prophet right into my bed along with big breakfast on a tablet..."

"You wish!" Angelina, who was dancing near them with Percy, gave George an outraged look, but smiled fondly at him afterwards.

"Don't worry, Angelina, he doesn't read the Prophet." Percy said and they were circling away from them again.

"Well, I'll have to... show her the ropes yet, obviously..."

Helen chuckled, she somehow doubted very much that the headstrong Angelina, former chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, would do an obedient housewife.

"Where are you going to live by the way?"

"First, we're going to honeymoon, to France, for two weeks, then I'll help Angelina move in into my apartment in London. We're staying there first, later perhaps, who knows... I'd like to have a house though, but, for now we're both enjoying the city-life..."

"Oh, I almost forgot!" She let go of George's arms, reaching for her purse that was lying on a near table. She pulled out a tiny, coin-sized book, then took her wand, to point it at the small object: "_Engorgio_. Here, that's my wedding gift." She gave him the now quite large, ancient looking volume.

George glanced at her in disbelief. "A book? ! You better be joking..."

"No, open it. It's inside. But don't touch it." She said.

George slowly opened the heavy leathern cover and there, in a large cut out quadrate hole laid... yet another book, only smaller, and a card with lines of Helen's unmistakable handwriting. He gave her a resigned look and sighed. "Well, my wife is an ardent reader..."

Helen smiled mysteriously. "It's a portkey."

"A portkey?" Now he raised his eyebrows, his interest clearly awoken. "Where to?"

Helen smiled mischievously. He observed her for a moment, then remembered. He said in disbelief: "It's the blue villa, isn't?"

She nodded.

"Well, that's... not _a bit_ morbid."

Helen slapped him gently on his shoulder. "I thought you liked it." George raised his eyes from the portkey at her, not knowing what to say.

"I would never have returned there permanently, and it's a beautiful house, I wasn't sure whether your wife would like it too, but..."

"She'll love it." George interrupted her. "And if not, I'll make her." He joked. "Thank you."

Around five in the morning only the hard core of the guests and aunt Muriel were still sitting around at the tables, talking, laughing, one or two tireless couples including the just-wedds were dancing. Helen decided to go to bed, to get at least a few hours of sleep before she had to leave to the airport. When she said good bye to everyone, she went into the house. There in the living room Ginny and Hermione were chatting. They raised their heads as she entered.

"I'll say good bye. I go to bed."

Both girls got up, Ginny hugged her again. "Good night. It was nice to see you, Helen, you look good. Keep in touch." She let go and stepped back.

Hermione smiled at her, tired. "Glad we met, despite... have a safe flight, and take care there." Helen smiled back and was about to leave.

"And Helen?" She turned back. "You _do _look good. And I'm looking forward to hearing more about you and the watcher." She said and chuckled. Helen's eyes widened and she blushed.

"Right."

Finally, the first day of school was here. Giles had been looking forward to it since the last day of the previous school year, the day he drove Helen home and she told him she'd be back, yet now he felt terribly nervous as he was walking with Principal Snyder down the courtyard.

"The first day, it always gets me." Snyder was contemplating.

"Yes." Giles replied, throwing stealthy glances to every direction, not really listening.

"... they're just a bunch of hormonal time-bombs. I mean... look at them..." Snyder paused, pointing with his head towards the group of the three Scoobies. Giles looked at them, they were just winking to and smiling at someone.

"... and everytime a pretty girl walks by every boy turns into a gibbering fool." Snyder continued his grumblings.

Giles looked towards the person Buffy, Willow and Xander had been winking at, and his heartbeat accelerated at the highest rate.

There she was, walking towards them. _She's... so beautiful_, he thought, as if for the first time he'd noticed, though she looked just as always except perhaps that she was wearing a short summer dress now instead of trousers she usually had on. She was almost with them and Giles feared his heart would take a flight out of him.

"Ms. McGregor." He said.

"Mr. Giles." She smiled widely at him, trying to hide her own nervousness.

"It's- good to see you, how are you?"

"Thank you, I'm fine, but-eh... I arrived only a couple of hours ago, so a little disoriented still, from the jet-lag."

"In that case may I offer to walk you to your office?" He bowed to the direction of one of the entrances.

"Thanks, that would be most helpful." She followed him. "After over 16 hours of flight... hadn't it been for the delayed plane from L.A."

"Plane?" He asked.

She frowned confused at the question.

Giles shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I-eh... didn't think you- being a witch..." He looked apologetically, but Helen smiled amused.

"Why, you thought I flew on a broomstick over the Atlantic?" She joked, but then saw his expression. He blushed, squirmed and looked at her as if he felt caught.

"You _did_ just imagine me flying on a broomstick, didn't you?" She asked horrified and turned pink herself.

Giles cleared his throat, embarrassed. "W-when you-you said jet-lag-"

"You thought it was from a broomstick? !"

"W-we-well..."

_A/N: Thanks for reading. Please review, comment, ask, criticize..._


	14. Chapter 14: A Date

Chapter 14

A Date

_AN: So, here it comes. The-First-Date-Chapter :) I hope I can hold up to the expectations._

_Many thanks for the kind reviews, it does make one very happy to know that people like the story, it also rises the pressure to keep up the writing at least as good as till now..._

_I'm not entirely sure whether I didn't put Giles with an assumed Byron-liking a little out of his character... but I needed to create some connection between the two :) well, you'll see, let me know what you think._

Giles wished himself far-far away.

"I-I'm sorry, I-I didn't... realize... how awfully-uh... embarrassing..."

Helen was looking at him, but couldn't help it and burst into a laughter. Giles' eyes widened, yet he found the sound so pleasant, that it made him forget about his mishap and he smiled back at her.

After a while when she recovered they went on. "I'm sorry." She apologized. "Did you really think I flew all the way from London to Sunnydale on a broomstick? I mean... that would take like... I don't know... even with the _new_ Firebolt... well, it certainly wouldn't have been faster, and... since I've attended the wedding the day before – not mine –" She caught his quickly raised head. "- it probably wouldn't have been the best idea either..."

"W-well, I didn't... exactly... I just wouldn't have thought you flying with-uh... a plane..."

"I admit it's-eh... rather unconventional for a wizard." She nodded and they slowed their walk a little as they were approaching her and Mr. Pescoe´s classroom.

Giles raised his eyebrows curiously, but she didn't want to get into it.

"That's a long story. Perhaps some other time... But how was your summer? Did you... read... something nice?" She asked.

"Uh-I've read several-uh... wearisome volumes dealing with vampires and other demons, I'm not sure _nice_ would apply to them, but they'd proven-uh... interesting, rich on details, and instructive, although quite unappetising on occasions... and I managed to reread my old Byron collection..." He blushed a little again, unsure of whether he should have shared the last bit.

Now it was her who raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Byron? Really? I wouldn't have guessed."

"Well, last time I read it I was... it was long ago, I've wondered whether it'd still have the-eh... impact it had..."

"And?" She asked.

"I-I still found it... rather good. It did not knock my socks off like then, but... it still holds its fascination..."

"Doesn't it?" She murmured thoughtfully, making a mental note about this and remembering something... _there was an announcement back in June, in the local paper_... She's already got an idea.

"Was there any vampire activity during the summer?" She asked him.

"No, no, there wasn't. We-uh, we buried the skeleton of the Master, and since then – no, no vampires..."

In that moment Willow, Xander and Buffy reached them, Willow saying in excitement: "Buffy killed a vampire last night!"

After a short confused talk they all parted to their classes, Giles resorted to his library to search for possible reasons why vampires would gather in the Hellmouth again so soon after the Master's death.

In the afternoon Helen was so tired that she decided to just go home and have some sleep after the strains of the long flight and of the first school day. She was just opening the front door of her house when a dark hooded figure appeared out of nowhere and before she could react in any way, she was knocked out unconscious. She woke up hours later, only for a few moments, to see that she was lying tied up in a dark room that looked like an old warehouse or a factory, another body was lying next to her, but she could only recognize that it was a woman, before someone came from behind, hit her head and she passed out.

When she came to herself again, the first thought was that she was dreaming: She opened her eyes and saw the blurred face of Giles bowing above hers, talking at her in a quiet yet urgent voice.

"I wouldn't mind waking up in this manner every day." She murmured to herself, sure that the handsome vision would disappear soon as she would wake entirely from her dream. However it didn't. Instead the now clear and sharp face of the librarian was frowning at her. She frowned back, then set herself up leaning on her elbows. Only now she took a look of the surroundings that were the same as before, a dark, hardly lit up room in some down and out building. Sounds of a fight, or of several, were coming from somewhere near. Next to her sat Willow and Cordelia, they obviously just woke up too.

"Are you alright?" She asked him finally. "Where are we?" Giles helped her to get up, then Xander appeared in a door and ran to squeeze Willow. She seemed surprised but happy.

They were all up now and looking over a metal railings downwards, into a wide room beneath them, where Buffy was about to kill the last couple of vampires. Those, as Giles shortly explained to Helen and Cordelia, had tried to bring the Master back to life, using an old revivification ritual, thus captured those four of them who had been near the Master as he died, and were about to slit their throats in order to let their blood pour on the Master's bones.

"Wow. I can't believe I had actually missed this place..." Helen whispered, while they were watching Buffy "working out her issues", crashing the remains of the old vampire with a desperate passion. It was a sad scene, Helen couldn't help it but think that it appeared as if Buffy was trying to smash her own destiny with it too, the burden of which she probably has been finding just too heavy now. A girl of sixteen, destined to constantly save the world, to risk her own life every day to save the butts of people who might not even be worth it, to face the danger of her own extinction every single day, not being able to have a normal life ever, to afford building up friendships, even less love...

But then they saw Angel walking over to her, taking her into his arms, holding her tight.

The following first weeks of the new school year had been rather busy. Buffy, Willow, Xander and Helen had to get accustomed to their new classes, the kids had to get into their new junior-year routine, Helen had to prepare her first lessons and at least try to learn the names of her new students.

And Giles... well, Giles was up to something completely different, as Buffy and Xander got the chance to find out when they surprised him on an afternoon: He was sitting on a chair in the library, his back turned to them, opposite to him yet another but empty chair, at which he was talking.

Buffy and Xander exchanged curious looks.

"Do you think someone else got invisible? Because _that_ wasn't fun..." Xander whispered.

Buffy grinned. "I don't think so. Listen." Slowly they were approaching and heard Giles' stutter.

"W-w-w-what I'm proposing is, um... and I-I don't mean to appear indecorous, is, is, um, a, a-a-a social engagement, um, a, a, a, a-a date, if you're amenable..." They both were trying their best not to laugh, as Giles slapped his thighs. "You idiot!" "Boy!" Buffy exclaimed and Giles jumped up to turn at them, with shock all over his face. "I guess we never realized how much like that chair."

"I-I-I was just working on-" He was rubbing his forehead, clearly embarrassed.

"Your pick up lines? Right, you might wanna leave off the idiot-part. And also you should avoid words like _amenable_ or _indecorous_."

"Hm?"

"You know, speak English, not... whatever they speak in-uh..."

"England?" Giles raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah. You just say _I got a thing, you might have thing, maybe we could have a thing_."

"What if she is from England too?"

"Don't hold it against her, G-man." Xander said throwing himself on a chair. "They're not all that bad."

Giles gave him an annoyed look, and Buffy continued her advice.

"Then you say _How do you feel about Mexican_?"

"About Mexicans?"

...

Yet Giles had to put his plans aside for a couple of days, as a new case emerged for the Scoobies. Someone seemed to be digging out bodies of young girls. After some thorough investigation they found out that two students from the school, Eric and Chris, were planning on patching up a girl, made from different parts of different dead bodies, but they still didn't know anything about the reasons for this abominable scheme.

On the next day during the long break between the third and the fourth period Giles was staying in the courtyard, embracing tightly a pile of books, stepping nervously from one foot onto another, being on the lookout for Helen. Buffy, Willow and Xander did encourage him in their funny way to go for it and ask her out, but it made him feel even more embarrassed and impossible, to think that he in fact needed tips and encouragement from teenagers...

Then he saw her. She was walking across the square and when she spotted him, he'd notice that she blushed a little and took a deep breath, then walked straight towards him. He was alarmed at this.

"Mr. Giles." She greeted him with a nervous smile.

"Miss-uh... McGregor, hello."

For a brief moment they both seemed speechless.

"I-"

"I-"

They laughed.

"You first." She said.

"Oh, thanks..." _Alright, here we go_. "Uh-uh... would-would it appear indecorous, no, not indecorous... uh-... would it... wha-what I'm proposing-eh... if-if you're amen-, no, not-uh that either... would you..." He closed his eyes and proceeded with the idiot part silently in his head, then exhaled, rubbing shortly his forehead. "W-what-eh... did you want to say?" He tried to sound as casual as possible as if none of the previous gibberish had slipped his mouth.

She was looking at him, her eyes widened, and was feeling even more insecure than before.

"I've-eh... been meaning to ask you – I've got-eh..." She was talking to his chest, not daring to meet his eyes. "I've got two... tickets for-eh... there is this Byron musical night tonight in the theatre... and... they'll play- I really don't know if you're into it, into classics, - because it's perfectly ok, if you're not... I-I'll understand..."

"Byron night?" He interrupted her, in his surprise he forgot how nervous he had been. _She remembered_.

Now she raised her head to him finally. "W-well, it's what they called it, but it's rather a proper concert, there is this orchestra visiting from someplace in France and they'll be playing two symphonies upon Byron's works, Berlioz and-uh... and Cajkovskij... They're both rather beautiful music..." She didn't know how to interpret his look: "... _if_ you're a classic-fan... Which you're probably not, sorry, forget it, I don't know what I was thinking, it was-"

"I'd very much like to come... with you." He said smiling gently and was delighted to see her eyes beaming. "And perhaps after that we can have some Mexicans." He added.

She frowned. "?"

"Uh- mexican. Mexican-uh food. That is – if you like."

"Sure." She nodded and they both headed inside.

"When shall I pick you up?" He asked her, as they reached her classroom.

"Let's see... The thing begins at half past seven I think... perhaps at seven then? You remember where my house is?"

"Of course."

"Great." She was blushing now a little, her fingers again playing with her scarf.

He smiled at her, then twinkled and said: "I'll see you at seven then."

"Yes."

"I'm very much looking forward... to it." He added, then bowed his head slightly and finally left.

As he was walking back to the library, a dreamy expression appeared on Giles' face. The feeling in his stomach was indescribably beautiful. He felt... an unknown sensation of anticipation, his knees felt so... as if his bones were made of a sponge, but it wasn't unpleasant, no, it was rather fascinating to him. He remembered remotely that he had felt something similar all those years ago, when he wanted to but in the end did not ask Anna out, his fellow watcher-in-waiting... A short sadness overcame him at the memory, yet in a way he felt sort of content, happy or rather satisfied now as if he had now completed the "task" from back then and made it right after all. _Well, strictly taken I didn't ask her, she had to ask me in the end, but still, here I am, going on a ... _date_..._ He raised his eyebrows still in a little wonderment about the fact, then frowned a little. _She didn't say it was a date. I hope it is a date. Is it a date? What does qualify as a date? What is a definition of a date? Is it researchable somewhere..._

Yet when the evening came, his _date_ seemed to be threatened by the developments in the newest Slayer-case evolving around Eric and Chris. The two boys did not come to school that day and him and the Scoobies had to worry about whether or not they might have completed their horrid plan and indeed created a patch-work-girl. Then Giles found out that the police had collected three girl heads which meant that Chris and Eric still were one step away from fulfilling their mission. Buffy decided for a quick action, she wanted to end it now, since she had little doubt that – if not Chris – then Eric certainly wouldn't hesitate to get a fresh head and kill some girl for the purpose.

Giles agreed with her, but then he slapped his forehead. "Oh no!" He threw a stealthy, shy look at the three of them, who were staring at him expectantly. "I-uh...I'm supposed to-to go to the concert tonight..."

Willow bit her lip so that she wouldn't grin widely, Buffy just rolled her eyes. "Right, you go then. We'll handle it."

"W-well, a-are you sure? Shouldn't I-?"

"Don't worry. We'll take care of it... Should there be any trouble, I'll beep you."

Giles looked somewhat confused. "Uh- beep me?"

Buffy gave him an impatient frown. "The beeper, you have it, haven't you?"

"Oh! Right, the-the beeper, yes, I do. Well then..." He looked at his watch. It was seven minutes to seven. "O dear." He hesitated yet once more.

"Well off you go, Giles, we can manage without you." Buffy said to him in a reassuring tone.

"Hm? Oh, it's-eh... it's not that." Then he walked fast into his office to grab his coat, while Willow gave Buffy a meaningful look, to which the latter responded with a question in her eyes. Willow whispered to her "Ms. McGregor" and "nervous" and grinning Xander drew with his fingers a heart in the air.

"Aaaaah." Buffy understood now.

Giles came out, looking very much fidgety, nervous, and he disappeared three more times in his office, always forgetting something, before he finally left.

"And remember! Speak English!" Buffy shouted at him as he was hurrying out. He slowed his walk but didn't turn back at her.

Helen was looking in the mirror in her anteroom, wondering whether she should wait for him to come and ring the door bell or whether she should go out and wait outside... _Those silly little choices, I hate thinking of stuff like that..._. she thought sighing. _And what if he won't like it? Wasn't this concert-idea rather a disaster? Poor Giles, he'll suffer terribly if he doesn't like it... He'll hate me afterwards... What was I thinking? !... Well, it is a little too late for that, dear, _her inner voice tried to calm her down, so she took a deep breath, shook her head at her reflection and stepped away to take a look from a window.

Finally, at seven she decided to wait outside, took her sweater and her purse and locked the door. She threw a first nervous glance at the empty and quiet road. As the minutes were passing by and he wasn't coming, she was beginning to panic a little. _Well, he won't hate me, because he might not be here at all.._.

It was already after seven and Giles was straying through Sunnydale's streets and alleys. _Of course I know where your house is, sure.._. he mumbled to himself sarcastically when he drove back out of the sixth one-way street that neither proved itself to be the right one. _It must be somewhere here_...

At last, way too late he arrived at her house. She was standing at the front door, waiting, starring nervously at the road. Again he thought in a little surprise how charming she looked... and immediately felt bad that he let her waiting so long that she might have even thought he'd forgotten. When she saw his car, she walked slowly the path towards the road where he'd park.

He got out. "I'm terribly sorry, there was this thing Buffy and the others are working on, and... I'm sorry."

She nodded, but didn't say anything, and let him open the car door for her.

When they both set it, he sensed her being a little tensed.

"I'm sorry... again, You did think I wouldn't come?" He asked her in his soft voice.

Quickly she turned at him. "No, no. I-... not really." She laughed nervously and Giles wanted to put a hand upon her, but he remembered the time in the library, several months ago, when she had jumped back as he tried the same, though the circumstances were different then, he decided not to.

"I-uh... have to confess something." He said in an earnest tone, starting the car.

Helen's eyes widened, wondering what would follow.

"I couldn't find your house. I got lost couple of times" He gave her a short look.

Helen leaned back at her seat, almost a little disappointed. But then she smiled into herself amused.

When they reached the theatre at exactly half past seven, there were many concert-guests gathered in front of the building, most staying in small groups, all dressed up, chattering. Helen and Giles proceeded to the entrance.

"Oh look!" She pointed at the large poster announcing the _Byron en musique._ "I was wrong, it begins at eight! We still have half an hour." She turned at him, pleased that they haven't missed anything, while Giles shook his head bemused. He should be mad, at least a little, after all he wouldn't have to hurry so much, had he known, but somehow... when he was following her, watching her, how she was walking up the stairs, then through the halls, and then when they reached the concert hall and the sounds of the tuning the orchestra could be heard from somewhere backstage and she turned her beautiful, excited, shining face at him... well, let's say he was very, very far from being mad.

"I love that sound... the tunings of the strings..." She said in an apologetic way when she noticed his bemused expression. They walked slowly towards a side-staircase, their seats were in the balcony above the auditorium.

"How comes you had two tickets for this?" He asked her. Helen blushed.

"Uh-...I-ah... I saw the announcement for this in June and then later when you told me you've been reading Byron, I-uh... I thought I-uh... I remembered it and-uh... I bought two tickets..."

"For me?" He asked curiously.

"Well..., yes, actually..." She proceeded towards their seats in the middle of the front row, right in front of the railings. "Here, I think these are ours." Helen hoped he wouldn't pursuit the subject of the two-tickets anymore.

"Oh." They both took their seats and put their coats over the railings. "And what if I couldn't have come?" He asked yet once more, a sheepish smile playing upon his lips.

Helen looked directly into his eyes. "Well, then-uh... I would have more space for myself, wouldn't I now?" She said in a tone, suggesting that it was obvious.

"Right. Quite so." He nodded, they looked at each other a little longer in silence, beaming, before some other guests disturbed them, who needed to pass by to their seats.

"I hope you won't hate me after this... if you don't like it. I know classics isn't everybody's thing..."

"Oh, I-I'm not a-a complete-uh... ignorant when it comes to it." Giles said. Now she turned a little on her seat to have a better look at him. "I had my-uh... Bach-phase... when I was a teenager." He smiled rather bashfully.

"Really?"

"Yes... that was-uh...I liked it, back then, I haven't listened to those records in years... and-uh... Beethoven of course..." He gave her a stealthy look, hoping he scored.

"Oh." She indeed seemed impressed. He only hoped she wouldn't ask him for anything concrete. _How many symphonies did he compose again_? He tried to remember hardly... _Go for No. 2, everyone did two at least, didn't they?_...

"Yes, Beethoven is an old love of mine too, I was just listening to the Piano Concertos yesterday, it's one of the few music things I can listen to while working..."

_Piano Concertos? No symphonies?_ "Yes, yes, they're-uh... lovely." He answered.

Unfortunately Helen seemed interested in this. "You know them? Do you have your preferred one, some heart-affair?" She asked curiously.

_Two, go for two!_ "Five." The number slipped his mouth. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, then opened them again and looked at her. "I mean they're all-"

"Really? Fifth, it's _my_ absolute favourite! The _Adagio_, that sounds so timeless..."

"My words exactly." He said and squirmed nervously, desperate to find another topic, besides he was uncomfortable with this messing around and lying, though it was just small stuff. He decided he would obtain this Beethoven album and then listen to it as soon as possible. "So-uh... you only listen to classics then?"

"Well, almost. I know, I'm somewhat limited when it comes to music. I haven't heard anything younger then 1920-ties in a long time... It's a real gap, I admit... What about you?"

"Uh-... I do have some-uh... modern albums... well, not really modern, Buffy would probably say something about _stuck in the 60-ties_, but it's rather good music, in my opinion at least."

"Sixties..." Helen nodded thoughtfully. The only thing she knew from that time was some muggle boy-band called Beatles, those weren't bad actually... not exactly her taste, but...

"Perhaps I can show you sometime... that is if-if you're-uh... amenable... I mean, if you like..." He gave her a quick look, not sure how it sounded.

"Sure... that... could be nice." She nodded smiling.

They sat in an awkward silence for a moment, then he asked. "Don't-uh... wizards rather have their own, better composers?"

"Oh, no, no. You see composing music isn't something one could achieve with magic, so there are no... special... musicians. Actually it's the other way round." She lowered her voice and leaned slightly towards him to say in a secretive tone. "Some of the world's famous composers were actually wizards."

Giles stared at her intrigued.

She nodded, to underline her words. Then she continued whispering. "Take Purcell for instance."

_Purcell? The Purcell? Britain's greatest_? Noo... He frowned in disbelief, but Helen was still nodding and smiling. "Yes, it's true. The witches singing in the premiere of his _Dido and Aeneas_ were actually real ones."

Giles was speechless at first. "But-... how... why-?"

"Well, he didn't want to settle for being successful among the small wizarding community, obviously, so... he wanted to conquer the muggle fame as well... must be the part of an artist's vanity I suppose, he wasn't the only one." She added casually, then gave him a meaningful look, but before he could ask anything else, they were interrupted by the arrival of the orchestra on the stage. Then the leader first violinist began to supervise the last tunings. Both Giles and Helen seemed distracted by the sounds that they didn't talk anymore before a festively dressed-up woman finally appeared to announce the first of the two pieces that were to be played that evening – Berlioz' _Harold en Italie_ – then the conductor came. Giles leaned back at his seat, curious what would come, tensely determined to enjoy this. He couldn't remember the last time he was in a classic concert, but it must have been very long ago...

The strings began to play a quiet, fugitive movement, soon a solo viola joined them, playing a very distinctive, pleasant melody.

"Why is the man standing so aside?" Giles leaned to her and whispered, while not taking his eyes from the stage, yet pointing at the solo-violist, who was staying unusually secluded from the orchestra, rather close to the audience.

Helen leaned towards him too and felt her heartbeat accelerating at the closeness between them, his face only inches from hers.

"He and his melody-uh... they-uh..." She paused and gulped, watching his profile, the same lips that happened to be kissing her some time ago in a dream, her voice a little shivery when she managed to continue in a whisper after he gave her a confused look. "-they are supposed to symbolize Harold, he is to be isolated from the orchestra, that was Berlioz' instruction..."

Giles nodded and then leaned back on his seat. He listened to the music and Helen would now and then throw a stealthy glance at him to see, whether he was suffering too much. But Giles wasn't. In the third movement she noticed his eyes fixed at the violist, his face had a very calm, relaxed, even pleased expression, he seemed content, truly deepened into it all. He had such handsome features, there was some sort of a mysterious air around him, he was eradiating this air of beauty, not just in a physical sense, though he undoubtedly was a handsome man too, very handsome...

When the final fourth movement _Orgie de brigands_ began with the tremendously loud sudden pickup of the whole orchestra, Giles straightened up, a little scared on his seat. Yet he was listening in fascination until the end.

When the first symphony was over and a short break was announced, they both got up and went to the foyer to have a glass of wine.

"So, have you been suffering a lot?" Helen asked him finally as they found some space aside from the masses of other guests.

"Not at all." Giles answered, sipping from his glass. "It-uh... was rather... fascinating... though the last movement was somewhat confusing..." He added frowning.

Helen nodded knowingly. "Yes, the Orgy." Giles furrowed his eyebrows. _Orgy_?

She caught his look. "The Orgy of the brigands, that's the title... Berlioz sort of sums up the previous parts of the piece, but... Harold doesn't resume his original part in it anymore, you know, the viola-melody from the beginning, it's not played anymore in its proper form... it's called romantic irony..." She continued talking about the piece, excited like a little child, and Giles would catch only now and then a phrase, a word, he wasn't listening, though he was trying... well, at least at first... No, his thoughts were with her, but elsewhere, he forgot all about the music, he was looking at her, as they were staying in a weakly lit corner, leaning against the wall, absorbing every little detail of her appearance. His lips were twitching into a smile. _How beautiful she was_...

"... and then the clarinets took over..."

In her brown eyes there seemed to be dancing a few little sparkles now. One strand of hairs hung loosened along her face, little strips of reflected shining light appeared at the crests of its wave...

"...as he joined the march of the pilgrims..."

She was chattering so fast, so... passionately, so full of enthusiasm, her small mouth moving so fast... Her lips were so lovely, the lower lip was fuller than the upper one, the corners thin and then suddenly wandering off into this couple of gentle ruby red tiny mounts. The upper lip was like a thin line, yet it had this ideal form... what did it remind him of?

"... the celli were outstanding..."

_A_ _cello, yes_, it was shaped like a violoncello cut in half, with its perfect curves and the little sinking right in the middle... Though he was hanging on her lips now, he didn't hear that she was already talking about the other symphony that was to follow that evening.

"... but Cajkovskij found it boring at first. Can you believe that? Cajkovskij actually thought _Manfred_'s boring?" She said, shaking her head in amazement, looking at him, expecting some reaction. Giles got alarmed a little and managed to catch the following: "Can you imagine that... only like what... seventy years later he couldn't relate to Byron anymore... that he didn't understand it?"

"Well, I don't-uh... think it's unusual... I mean, how often we ourselves do not-uh... understand things that happened... only a generation ago, actions, things for instance that our-uh... our parents did, thoughts they thought, ideas and views they had, even more recently than seventy years ago..."

"Hm." She murmured, looking at him very much puzzled. Then she noticed his eyes slipping for a second from hers, lower to her lips and her hand jumped nervously to her neck, to grab her scarf that she wasn't wearing tonight. She caught her necklace instead and was now feeling somewhat insecure, so she turned her head towards the large door that led back to the upper balcony.

"I think we can return. Seems like the break will be over soon."

Giles did notice the movement and had to suppress yet another smile, then followed her back to their seats.

"But he finally took the job, Cajkovskij?" Giles asked when they were seated again.

"Yes, he had changed his mind later, though he had nagged quite a lot about it all, how it made him depressed to work on it and everything..." She replied.

And then the Manfred-Symphony sounded and Giles found himself again very much caught in the music, imagining the byronic hero wandering in his gloomy mood through the mountains, summoning the appearance of the Witch of Alps, her talking to Manfred...

He was enjoying the first moments of the last movement when a sound that was rather painful, disturbed them all. _Beep-beep. Beep-beep_. Helen turned to him. Then again: _beep-beep. Beep-beep_. It seemed to be coming from his pocket. Then Giles remembered. Frantically he took the beeper-thingy out of his trousers. _Beep-beep Beep-beep_. It was Buffy. Other guests were already sh-shing at them or shaking their heads disapprovingly. Giles took his coat, then turned to Helen and whispered to her. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid..." Yet she interrupted him, laying her hand on his arm, already getting up, taking her sweater and motioning him to follow her outside.

They hurried out and at the reception Giles called the library. There Willow picked up and told him, that Daryl, Chris' older brother together with Eric were after Cordelia, whose head was supposed to complete their project. Cordelia, after Buffy had thwarted an attack at her, was now cheerleading at the big baseball-game, Xander watching her, while Buffy and Chris went to look for Eric and Daryl.

"You best come here, Giles, I must go to Xander!"

"Yes, right, I'll be there." He hung up and walked fast towards Helen, who already put on her sweater and was waiting for him at the exit.

"I'm terribly sorry, I must return to the school, it's urgent."

"Alright." She said, going ahead. Giles wasn't sure what to do, but she seemed to have decided to come with him without question.

In the car she finally asked what was going on and Giles let her in on their last case. When he finished, Helen shrugged. "Uurgh, that's-uh... rather ghastly... why would anyone want to do such a thing?" She wondered incredulously.

They reached the school just in time and in the corridor they ran into Willow and Xander, who told them that Eric and Daryl were in the old school lab with Cordelia, Buffy and Chris went after them. All four of them now hurried towards the old science-room.

There it looked like a scene from a horror-movie. Eric laid on the ground, unconscious, Cordelia was bound to an operating table, unable to move, Buffy was fighting with what must have been Daryl, who himself looked like he'd been patched up together from his own scratches. And the room was on fire. Quickly they judged the situation and while Giles and Helen carried Eric out of there, Xander went to rescue Cordelia.

Finally, it ended well, well at least for Buffy and the Scoobies, Daryl decided to go down in the flames, with his unfinished companion... For Chris of course it was hard and Buffy had to prevent him from wanting to save his brother, whom he himself had brought back to life some time ago, after Daryl actually died in a climbing accident.

Now Helen and Giles were standing in front of the school, watching Buffy comforting Chris, who were soon joined by Angel.

"Again, I'm very sorry about all this, that's certainly not how you must have-uh... imagined our..." He cleared his throat. "-uh imagined the evening."

Helen smiled and shook her head.

"No, not-uh...quite."

"We didn't get to hear the last part of _Manfred_'s either... I'm sorry, knowing you said that was the best part..." He said.

She nodded thoughtfully. Then she looked at her watch and bit her lip, hesitating for a moment whether to go on with the suggestion. _Hell, why not_...

"It's-uh... still not too late... perhaps..."

Giles furrowed his eyebrows. "Is the fourth movement _that_ _long_?"

Helen laughed. "No, the concert sure is long over... I meant..." She blushed and was looking at him nervously. "I have a record, at home, perhaps... if you're not entirely exhausted after this-uh... event... we could-uh... catch it up."

Giles felt again his heart beating faster and his knees getting weaker, as he answered. "Y-yes. That-uh... sounds nice..."

"Good."

As they were walking to his car, Giles asked wondering. "Aren't you hungry?"

Helen stopped, wondering now too: "Actually, I'm starving." Then she threw at him an innocent look. "Maybe we can order some Mexicans."

Giles grinned at her, before opening the car door for her.

When they arrived at Helen's, she indeed ordered some Mexican food for them (with a nice bottle of wine). They went over into the living room, Helen picked the said record and put it on the player, somewhere at the end of the third movement. Then she walked to Giles and they both sat on the sofa, listening, starring into the fire in the fireplace. Giles again immersed himself into the music, that was... amazing he would say. He would never have thought... yet, he felt as if he was right there, present at the untamed, loud bacchanals in the hall of Arimanes, waiting for Manfred to appear, then summoning the spirit of Astarte, and finally, parting from him during the breathtaking hymn in the end, portraying Manfred's long desired death and reconciliation... He could imagine it all so vividly, even better than back then when he was reading the original piece.

Giles was still watching the flames long after the music was over, and was only disturbed by the door bell, as their food came delivered and Helen got up to take it, but he stopped her just in time, he wanted to pay for their dinner at least.

They ate in the kitchen, at the large table, some music playing quietly in the background, occasionally talking about diverse things. Helen was interested in Giles' first encounter with Buffy, so he began to tell her the story of Buffy's first days in Sunnydale, which he continued when they were finished eating and betook themselves back to the living room, with their glasses of wine.

They were sitting comfortably on the sofa, Giles allowed himself – after he gave it a thorough thought of pros and contras – to take off his tweed-jacket and stay in his shirt. Helen changed the record for some mild, unobtrusive piano music.

"Wow, tough, right upon her first day here Buffy had to save the world?" Helen said admiringly, when Giles ended telling her about the successful – well not so from the Master's perspective – outcome of the Harvest about a year ago.

"Well, yes, something like that."

"I wonder how she handles it sometimes." Helen was contemplating. Giles didn't answer, frankly, Buffy, the Slayer or the Scoobies were about the last things he would want to talk about here and now...

Apparently the same thought occurred to Helen too, because she suddenly took her blank look away from the fire, turned herself to him and said in a light tone. "So, how did you find it tonight? Was it very horrible for you?"

He put his glass at the coffee table and shook his head vehemently. "By no means! Not at all. It was lovely..."

Helen's eyes widened as she was hanging on his lips, awaiting his verdict. Her look made him pause.

"You meant the part with concert I hope... not-uh... not the massacre afterwards?"

"Hm?... Oh, yes, I meant that."

"Good." He said relieved.

They fell again silent for a while, sitting, turned to each other, their elbows leaning on the backrest of the sofa.

In the hardly lit up room, with the only light being the dancing flames in the fireplaces, his face looked even more... arcane, mysterious, more charismatic... Helen wished for a moment to put down his glasses where now the firelight was reflecting, making it almost impossible to see his eyes properly when he turned her head to her.

As if he had read her mind, he took his glasses off, rubbing his forehead. Helen now laid her wine aside as well, in the same moment when he was about to put his glasses on the table, so that their hands brushed. They smiled at each other, strangely, it didn't feel awkward. Helen thought that it must have been because of the wine... It was also getting hotter in the room. _Yes, it must be the wine_.

"You have a very nice house here." Giles said, looking around the living room.

"Oh, yes, and you wouldn't believe how ridiculously cheap it was." She replied.

Giles laughed. "Actually..."

He didn't finish the sentence, but got caught in her eyes.

Without noticing really they were slowly approaching each other, not breaking off the stare, not even blinking. Their both hearts were beating so fast, and it sounded so loud in their heads that the piano music seemed to be coming from some very far, distant place. When their faces were only inches from each other, Giles' eyes began to wander over her face, while she kept starring into his, puzzled by the beautiful shade of hazel and by the fascinated look in them.

Finally they both closed their eyes.

"Uuuuh, you must be the watch-tcher!"

They both flinched and straightened themselves up immediately, scared by the male voice.

"Oops..." Then the voice got somewhat muffled. "George, I thought you said muggles couldn't hear us here..."

_AN: O-kay. I promise, they'll get their first kiss, real soon :) And there should also be some more action later on_

_Review, comment, I know, not my best chapter here, I'm not very satisfied with the writing in this one, the wanna-be-romantic parts are a little lame... I somehow seemed to suffer more than usual under not being an English native speaker when trying to write those :)) I hope I'll improve with the time..._

_Is Giles still Giles, is he Giles-y enough, you think? _


	15. Chapter 15: Halloween

Chapter 15

Halloween

_AN: Many thanks for the last reviews! Here's the next bit._

_All the known quotes from Buffy-series belong to Joss Whedon and the writers of Buffy..._

Giles was starring into the fireplace through narrowed eyes, trying to see who had been talking. His mouth was open, yet he seemed unable to speak. Some rustling noises were emerging from there, but he could also, very clearly, distinguish human voices.

"Ron. You are. The most. Stupid person. I know." He heard someone else saying quietly through pressed teeth, when a face, yes, an actual, blurred, burning-looking face appeared in the fireplace for a second and when it noticed Giles' stare, it cursed "_Bloody, Merlin...!"_ and hurried away.

Helen sat next to Giles, biting her lower lip.

Then another face appeared, speaking with the voice they heard first: "Hi Helen." A red-haired freckled young man said, grinning widely at them.

Helen smiled tensely and somewhat forced, raised her hand and waved at Ron, resigned.

Giles turned slowly back to her. "Uh-... you-you are aware that-that-that... there's a man's head-uh... in-in your fireplace, talking..."

Helen gave him an apologetic look and nodded.

Then Giles turned to the face in the fire, frowning. "Who are you?" He asked shaking his head, utterly perplexed.

"Oh, manners, my name is Ron Weasley. Nice to meet you." Ron said brightly. Then another head bumped into Ron's. "Autch, George, watch your-"

"And I am George Weasley, Ronalds older and much wiser brother. Pleasure. We would offer you a handshake, but... being in a fire... yet I'm sure we'll meet some time soon again in person." George glanced at Helen. "Helen's been talking about you all the time, really, so we're glad to see that you are _finally_ here, and it seems she might-"

"Thank you, George." Helen jumped off the sofa and said rather loudly, glaring at the older one of the Weasleys, warning him not to finish whatever he was about to say. Then she turned to Giles. "Eh-... Ron and George... these-eh... are friends from England, we meet once in a month to-eh... to talk and exchange news..." She said, looking at him cautiously, afraid of his reaction. "I completely forgot that today was... one of our-eh... meetings."

Giles wasn't looking at her, but kept starring at the two red-haired heads in the fire. "They're in your _fireplace_." He repeated in a slow, stump voice. "They're-uh..." He put his glasses back on and frowned, seeing now clearly and sharply enough the two widely grinning Weasley-brothers. "... burning up and-uh... talking..."

Helen's face now was red, she didn't know how to get out of this embarrassing situation. She decided to take it step by step.

"Yes, my fireplace is connected to the Floo Network, actually merely for Head-Only-Transportation..." She began to explain slowly, teacher-wise.

"What?" Giles asked, now taking his gaze off the fire, he didn't understand any part of that sentence.

"Yeah, explain that to me too, why do you have only Heads connected? It would be so much easier to visit your place without that annoying detour over the Ministry and over Forth Worth... besides, I _hate_ Portkeys..." George nagged. Helen took a deep breath, trying to stay calm, ignoring him, looking at Giles.

"It's-eh... it's a form of communication between wizards. Don't worry, they're not hurting in the fire, it's completely harmless-"

"Actually, it's quite uncomfortable this morning, my nose is tickling in the flames..." George began to complain. "And the temperature doesn't seem to be quite the right one either, I'm a little worried what this will do to my skin tomorrow... I hope it won't be all pickled and red again..."

Ron looked at him with a fear in his eyes. "Really? Does that happen? I don't want any pimples on my face! I look like a retard then."

"You always look like a retard, Ron. That's because you are one..." Ron glared at his brother, but Helen interrupted them loudly, without turning away from Giles to face them.

"Do you mind?"

She gave Giles a sad smile, knowing that the moment was gone. For now. She said in a quiet voice: "I'm sorry."

Giles felt that she really was. He finally got up, took his jacket, still throwing glances into the fire.

Some other voices could be heard from behind the two men, a female one asking. "Is he really there? The Watcher? Did you see him?" And then another, a girl whispered excited: "Let me see!" "Shut up, Ginny", the man called George said to someone.

Giles walked towards the open door leading to the anteroom, Helen followed him. There in the doorway he turned to her. He was still so perplexed that he didn't know what to say, too many thoughts, too many impressions were there in his head that he needed to analyse, to sort out. He scratched his head nervously.

"Thank you, nevertheless." Helen said.

Giles looked confused.

"For the nice evening... More than nice." She said and felt her heart beating faster again.

"Y-yes..."

"I hope you can-eh... forgive this... mishap..." She was looking at him now, waiting for him to say something, but he just gave a forced, absentminded smile.

"Yes-uh... good night."

"Good night." She said, her eyes once more pleading for forgiveness.

He nodded. She couldn't interpret his look, he didn't seem angry, not even disappointed, but... unfocussed somehow, uncomfortable? Disturbed?

Then he left. She watched him for a moment walking slowly to his car, then she closed her front door, leaning inside against it, sighing.

Giles was sitting in his car for a while before he drove off. His head was swarming with so many thoughts, so many bits and images of that evening, that he was unable to pick one for longer than few seconds, before just another popped in front of his eyes. Helen standing at her front door, looking anxiously at the road, her hurrying excited through the halls and floors of the theatre; an isolated solo-violist on the stage playing Harold, Helen talking to him about strange things he did not understand like _romantic ironies_, her ruby red cello-formed upper lip, her dark eyes; then the Zombie-like Daryl perishing in the fire; Helen's face lit up by the fire from the fireplace, her eyes looking deeply into his, approaching... all this accompanied by bits of the symphony-music, then people talking, grinning faces in the fire, talking about a floo network and portkeys, whatever those were, and about pimples? !, and about him, the Watcher... _Hang on, how-._.. what did this George-chap say again? Something about_ she's talking about you all the time, really..._ Giles raised his eyebrows as if saying _I can live with that_... and smiled for himself.

_Now hang on once more_! He frowned. _They knew about- The Watcher? She told them?_ He was alarmed now. She said she wouldn't... He was a little disturbed by this, but he remembered almost immediately, that he himself had told Robson some months ago about her, and felt a little ashamed now, because she didn't know that either... She had no idea how much he knew... Perhaps they should talk... _On Monday_, he said to himself and nodded. Only then he started the engine of his old Citroen and left.

Helen walked back into her living room and posted herself in front of the fire: "Now, to the two of you." She said in a quiet, seemingly calm tone and was glaring at them in an almost frightening way.

Now while Ron was looking at her a little guiltily, George had a wide grin on his face, as if to say – _I told you this would happen_...

"He's... fairly handsome..." George said as if playing a jury in a beauty contest. "Tall... I'd say the age is... suitable... though he seemed a little slow-witted..."

"I'd like to see you seeing someone talking at you from a fireplace..." Helen replied indignantly, then frowned, realizing it was a stupid thing to say to George. "Right." She said irritated.

"And?" George asked in expectation. "Did you snog him after all?"

Helen looked scandalized by that choice of words. "No! I don't-eh... _snog_."

"Not yet." Ron finished, grinning.

"Well, I don't see it happening anytime near with you two constantly popping into my house at the worst possible moments."

"What? ! So it's our fault now? ! _You_ forgot – AGAIN – that we were supposed to meet this morning-"

"Well, you could have had the presence of mind to _leave_, when you saw us..." Helen said, the wary undertone already fading out, but she still was a little mad.

"I'm sorry!" Ron said. "Dumb George here told me that muggles can't hear us or see us from here-"

"Who-hoa! Dumb Ronald here _outdid_ himself in his _dumbness_ and was actually indeed – beyond my imagination – _stupid_ enough to believe it."

"Hey!" Ron exclaimed, looking hurt.

Helen looked from one to the other, then shaking her head she decided to give up.

"Whatever." She threw herself on the sofa. "Tell me what's new with you."

"Not much." George said casually, Ron nodded.

"Harry has proposed to Ginny, but Mom won't hear of it..." Ron said.

"Why not?"

"Ah, she said they were too young and they shouldn't rush into anything," George began to explain in a bored way.

"But we think that she just doesn't want another wedding so soon, because they can't afford it, her and dad..." Ron continued.

"And Harry told her, he'd pay all the expenses down to the last sickle, but... Then I told her _I_'d pay for it, ... and yet she keeps saying it's not the money issue, blah-blah. She's too proud and too stubborn, she says it's for the parents to pay for it..." George said.

Ron turned to his brother, wondering. "You offered that? Paying for their wedding? Would you then cover some of my wedding expenses too when it'd come to it?"

George gave him an uncomprehending stare. "Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea? !"

Ron seemed disappointed.

"Besides, you haven't even proposed to Hermione yet, she might not even have you for all we know." George said.

"I might just ask her tonight, you watch me." Ron said touchily.

"Yeah, I'd like to see you try." George said unimpressed. "Besides, you lads, it's really not cool anymore, _I_ married Angelina and now everyone's proposing."

Helen was listening to them bemused, as they continued teasing each other.

"Ok, anything else, _important_, happened?" She finally interrupted as their argument was getting tiresome.

They both seemed to have noticed her again. Then Ginny's face appeared in the fire.

"Hi, Helen." She greeted her happily.

"Hi. How are you?"

"Thanks, fine, I just wanted to tell you, I've asked dad about the WC-office, he didn't know anything. I mean, he knew it was there and that it existed, but... that's about it, nothing more. And it was supposed to be on level five by the way, somewhere around international cooperation."

"Oh, thank you, Ginny, did he-uh... get suspicious?"

"No, not at all. However I did not dare to ask more, he didn't know what watchers' council meant either or who they were supposed to be..."

"Hm." Helen nodded thoughtfully.

"We had an idea with George and Harry though." Ginny said slowly.

Helen raised her head, a question in her eyes, she had a faint notion.

"We-uh... thought we could-uh... sneak in there, with Harry's cloak... and-uh... you know... have a look."

Helen gave her this teacher-pupil look, saying _you know it's wrong_, but she couldn't help it and smiled. It seemed that they were all a little bored and missing the times of Hogwarts, where they did one mischief after another, undertook so many adventures, wandered to forbidden places under Harry's invisibility cloak...

"I don't want you to get into any troubles." Ginny was about to object, but Helen interrupted her. "Also because you're not the only ones whom it could put into a very uncomfortable situation if you were caught."

"I told'ya." George said to Ginny, nodding his head knowingly. Ginny sighed, but understood.

"Oh, there's one more thing." George said turning back to Helen. "You probably haven't heard yet... Rodolphus Lestrange's been sighted, in Mexico."

Helen raised her eyebrows, interested in this news. "Oh?"

"Yes, some of the local wizards saw him, then Kingsley sent two aurors there, but... they were too late, he'd escaped."

"Hm, Mexico. Interesting." Helen murmured. _What could he possibly be doing down there_?

"You don't get the Prophet anymore?" Ron asked her, waking her from her thoughts.

"No, I cancelled the subscription months ago, I hardly had time to read it every day, besides, I must say I had been hoping that the standard of that paper would have improved after the Battle, but... I wish they'd at least go online, we're in the 21st century, for Merlin's sake!" She said yawning, her voice sounded tired.

"Kingsley told me they're planning some modernization there, also with the Prophet, so, it might happen soon, they have someone working on it, especially on the anti-muggle-protection on the internet, they haven't quite figured out just yet how to manage it. Obviously some entirely new spells need to be invented."

"Hm." Helen replied, her eyelids falling together.

George, Ron and Ginny exchanged grins.

"I think we can leave you now, we did wreak quite enough here today after all." George said, proud with himself.

Helen got up and they said good bye. The Weasleys were gone and she went to bed.

On the next Monday Giles was hoping that she would come to the library and he wouldn't have to go to her office, he didn't want to appear pushy and he was a little nervous and unsure how to ask her about those friends of hers and what she told them about him and the Slayer.

Yet she didn't come the whole day and so in the late afternoon Giles made his way towards her classroom after all. She wasn't in the class where he'd have expected to find her, so after a moment of hesitation he proceeded to the door of hers and Mr. Pescoe's office. Just before he knocked, the label next to the door caught his eyes – _Robert Pescoe, History & Helena T. McGregor, History, Arts_. T.? As in _Thornton_? He wondered...

A man's voice said from behind the door: "Come in."

Giles entered and found Helen's elder colleague sitting at his table, grading some papers. She wasn't there. Mr. Pescoe was looking at him friendly and asked in a hearty voice. "Ah, Mr. Giles, what brings you here?" Then he turned earnest. "Am I too late again with returning the civil-war books?" He asked anxiously.

Giles smiled at him. "No, not at all. I-uh... I was looking for Ms. McGregor, I-uh-...she-she's-?"

"Did _she_ forget to return some books? Because if she did then you'll have to wait..."

Giles frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Or she might have them here somewhere if you need them urgently. Look at her table." Mr. Pescoe already got up and went over to Helen's somewhat messy desk. "You see she's not very well organized when it comes to order, but... otherwise she's a smart cookie I can tell you..." He was chattering while going through Helen's things. "Now what are you looking for?"

"I-I didn't come to recollect any books, actually, I just-uh... needed her-needed to-uh... ask her something." Giles said, his face getting red.

"Oh." Mr. Pescoe stared at him for moment. "I'm sorry, she's not here. She's called this morning that she's sick, a severe cold or something, poor thing."

"Did she say when she would be back?"

"Not this week, she said we better don't count on her before next Monday."

Giles was slightly taken aback by this. Though he hadn't been exactly looking forward to the talk that was pending, he still has been longing to see her.

"Is it urgent? What you need from her? I can find her phone number if you wish, though I must say judging by the sound of her on the phone this morning she won't be of much help to you for some days..."

Giles wasn't answering, but appeared to be deepened in thoughts, so Mr. Pescoe walked back to his own desk and took his address book, then wrote a number on a piece of paper. He got up again and handed it to Giles. "Here. In any case."

Giles woke up from his thoughts. "Oh, thank you-uh... I don't think I'll disturb her then."

He bowed slightly, said good bye and left the office.

She wasn't there. A whole week... How was he supposed to manage a whole week, when so many pressing questions and matters were there that needed an answer, and a _completion_. He thought of the almost-kiss and felt something moving in his stomach... How indeed would he survive this week, he wondered.

Yet the answer came very soon. Its name was Spike.

"Spike?" Giles asked, when Buffy, Xander and Willow told him about their encounter with an unknown vampire at the Bronze the night before. He seemed to be rather vicious and had predicted to kill Buffy on the coming Saturday.

This "prediction" was keeping Giles and the others busy; for Buffy another unpleasant duty added to it, when principal Snyder told her to prepare the school for the teacher-parent night on Thursday. And by the way the threat of expulsion from the school was hanging over her head too.

After some thorough research Giles found out that on the coming said Saturday was supposed to be the night of St. Vigeous, which meant – to sum it up – nothing good. Shortly, Spike was obviously planning some kind of a massacre, very much in the style of the crusade of vampires that Vigeous himself had led some centuries ago, leaving terrible havoc and hundreds of dead behind.

However, patience didn't seem to be one of Spike's – or William the Bloody's as he was called in his past – virtues. So it happened that on Thursday night, right about the time when Snyder was about to end the parent-teacher night, after he had had an unpleasant, yet from his perspective probably very enjoying talk with Joyce Summers enumerating to her all of Buffy's bad qualities, Spike and his fellow vampires invaded the school, determined to eliminate the Slayer.

Giles was in the library together with Xander when they were surprised by the attack. They managed to barricade the library entrance and Giles sent Xander to get the help of Angel.

And while he was thinking about what to do next and considering to get out of the library and try to help Buffy at any cost, he thought Helen. He was glad that she wasn't there right now, which meant that she at least was safe. On the other hand he hoped that he would see her again, that he would survive this. Fortunately right in that moment when he was making his way through the barricaded door, Buffy jumped into the room through the ceiling.

Not an hour later it was over, they managed to kill the few vampires that were under Spike's command. Spike himself regrettably did get away, but Buffy, Buffy's mother, Willow, Xander and Cordelia were unharmed. But there had been two victims, one teacher, whom Spike killed in the school corridor and one parent, who tried to escape through a window and was immediately killed by two vampires guarding the school grounds.

On the next morning Giles was sitting in his office, reading, when the phone rang. He picked up. "Yes?"

"Rupert? Eh-... Mr. Giles? Thank Merlin!" A familiar female voice said relieved.

Giles' pulse got faster. "Hello! Miss-uh-"

"I've just seen the news and there was a report about a break-in to the school yesterday night and they said something about a gang and about some dead and one of them from school staff and-" She was saying in an agitated tone.

"Yes, there-there were two victims, sadly, but-uh... it could have been far worse, given the circumstances."

"What happened?"

Giles told her about Spike and the night of St. Vigeous that Spike decided to pre-pone.

"Oh dear." Helen sighed.

"We were very lucky that there had been only two deaths." Giles said and felt immediately embarrassed by these words. "I-I mean, without-eh... trivializing... it's still terrible of course, but-eh... a-after what we had found out about this-this Spike, we were expecting... fearing..."

"I see... well, I'm certainly very happy that you are all well, I was so... when I saw the news..." She said. Giles had noticed that the sound of her voice was different, it sounded much weaker than usual, somewhat faint.

"And are you... how are you-... I met your colleague on Monday and he told me you were ill..." He didn't want to tell that he actually went looking for her. "Are you better?"

"Oh-eh, yes, yes, thank you, it's getting better, just a cold I must have caught on weekend. Nothing-eh... terrible."

"I'm glad to hear it." Giles replied, smiling to himself. For a few seconds they were both silent. Giles was thinking hard whether he should ask her if she needed anything, if he could do something for her, bring her something along, but before he could come to any decision she interrupted him.

"Eh-... once again I'd like to apologize for the Friday night... I mean - not for the Friday night, it was actually very-eh... very nice..."

"Yes, yes, it was."

"I meant the-eh... the... interruption... through my friends..."

"Oh, don't-"

"Listen, I-eh... have to go now." She sounded a little panting now. "I... should be back on-on Monday, I'll see you then, alright?"

Giles frowned. "Of course. Get well!"

"Thanks, bye, see you soon." She hung up.

And indeed the following Monday after her classes Helen was walking to the library, full of anticipation, but also aware that some explanations were in order.

When she entered, Giles could nowhere be seen.

"Mr. Giles?" She threw a look into his office, but it was empty. "Mr. Giles?"

"Please, I do wish you'd call me Rupert..." She blenched and turned towards the racks. "Or-uh... just Giles." He was walking towards her, holding an open book.

She exhaled and touched her scarf, smiling now at him. "Alright, Rupert... Giles... I might need some time to decide which to prefer..." She said.

He came now to stand in front of her, looking deep into her eyes. She was still missing a little color in her cheeks, was not yet entirely fit.

"I-I'm Helen by the way." She said nervously.

"Oh, you're back!" Someone from behind them exclaimed happily. They turned around to see Willow, Buffy and Xander walk in.

"Does that mean I still need to write that essay on that Golden Revolution that was due for last week?" Xander asked annoyed.

"That's _Glorious_ Revolution, and yes. Tomorrow morning I expect to see it on my desk." Helen said without taking her eyes from Giles, who was smiling amused.

The trio made itself comfortable around the main table, it was obvious that they wouldn't leave, and Helen and Giles exchanged slightly disappointed looks.

Then Giles turned at them. "Eh... as long as you're here, you, Willow, can do the new arrivals, and Xander, Buffy, you sort out the returned books." He pointed towards the cage. Willow jumped up immediately, Xander and Buffy gave him a nasty glare, then got up too and walked over to the cage to fulfil the order.

Helen spoke in a quiet voice: "I came to explain..." She gave a stealthy look into both directions towards Willow, who was working behind the counter and towards Buffy and Xander. "Can we...?"

"We can talk in my office." He motioned her to go ahead.

When he closed the door behind them, Xander and Buffy looked at each other. "Boy, do I wonder what those two might be-" Xander began to drawl.

"Don't!" But Buffy stopped him in a disgusted tone.

"I just wanted to explain a few things... that concern... last Friday, you must have wondered how-"

"How your friends knew about me being the Watcher?" Giles finished her sentence and she looked at him, for a moment horrified that he'd be angry with her, but then noticed his expression revealing that he might have some remorse about something else himself.

"Yes." She continued though, deciding to get it over with as soon as possible.

She told him about George, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Harry. At the name of Harry Potter Giles squirmed a little, remembering once more the articles from the wizarding newspaper. Helen reassured him, that the five of them were the only ones to know about him and about the Slayer and that they would not tell anyone else, she trusted them. She also mentioned that they tried to find out a bit more about the Council-department of the ministry, but without success.

Giles for his part owned up to having told Robson, a member of the Council, about a witch in Sunnydale. "But-uh... I didn't mention your name, and I also asked him to keep it to himself. He is a good and trusted friend." He decided yet against telling her about what he had found out from the Daily Prophet, concerning herself. He thought that perhaps one day she'll tell him about it on her own.

"Have you then discovered, from your friend, something more about your Council and our Ministry?" She asked curiously.

"No. Only, and that was disturbing enough, that James _knew_ of such a connection. He was as stumped as me about the fact that I didn't." Giles said, again a bitter undertone tempering his voice.

"Is there no way for you to find out why they are keeping this from you?" She asked.

"No, I don't see how."

"However, perhaps you should be more cautious... I mean... I don't know how often you have to deal with them... but..."

Giles nodded, he understood perfectly.

She looked at her watch. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm afraid I have to go." She stood up. "An appointment."

Giles got up too, a little surprised. He meant to ask her something else after all, he just wasn't sure how. "Uh-...I-I... wanted to-to suggest something if you're-uh... not _amenable_... that is if-if you are..." _Why does that damn word keep slipping into my mouth? !_ He scratched his head nervously, taking a deep breath, preparing a second attempt. "I don't want to-to sound indecorous... but perhaps, if you're free, we could-uh... do... something, on-on Friday again perhaps?"

Helen raised her eyebrows. Was he actually asking her on another date? She blushed. "Yes, I'd love that!" She answered. _I'd love that? ! Why didn't you _just_ tell him that you want to kiss him over and over here and now? !_

"Great."

"But, wait." She frowned and Giles got alarmed that she had changed her mind. "Isn't this Friday Halloween?"

He nodded, expecting a question.

"Doesn't it... I don't know... mean a busy night for you and Buffy?"

"Not at all. On the contrary it's probably the most quiet night of the year. The records speak very clearly, nothing ever happens on Halloween."

Hence for the Halloween evening on the coming Friday they agreed to meet at Giles'. Helen decided to take a walk to his apartment. She threw one last glance at the small piece of paper, on which Giles had written her the address, then took her purse and left her house. On her way she bought a bottle of red wine. She was just leaving the grocer, when her eyes caught the window of another store, a costume place. _Hm_... She hesitated for a moment, but then walked slowly across the street to have a better look. The store would close in ten minutes. _This is probably the worst idea ever, but_... she thought while entering. It was almost empty, only a few teenagers were still frantically looking for something fitting. Apparently it was a successful day for the owner, he had sold out or let most of his costumes, judging by the look of all the empty racks and hallstands. What was left were a few ghost-overalls, one or two little princess dresses, and mostly small stuff, decorations like hanging stars or halloween candles.

"May I help you in any way, my lady?" A voice asked and Helen turned around. A man stood in front of her, with dark eyes and a wide over-friendly smile over his face, but there was something... she couldn't quite tell... something mischievous, sleek about him.

"Oh, no, thank you, I don't think so, it-eh... looks like I'm too late." At the sound of her voice he seemed to get more attentive.

"But surely for a fellow English there must be something I can do." He said.

Helen smiled. "Eh-... I was-eh... just looking, spontaneously, whether you might have a... fighter-pilot costume, for a grown-up, but-eh... it doesn't look like it."

The man seemed somewhat surprised. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid the last military piece I had I've let couple of hours ago on a young man."

"Oh, doesn't matter. It probably was a stupid idea anyway." She said waving her hand to indicate that it wasn't really important.

"Won't you find anything else? Something for yourself? A princess-dress? Snow-white? Cinderella? Or a sari – I have a few left-"

"No, really, thank-"

"Or something Bavarian – a dirndl – perhaps? No? Then... maybe a dominatrix? A nice real-leather piece?"

"Eh, no, I don't-" She frowned. "What? ! Domi-? ! No! ... No, definitely not the occasion, but-eh... thanks."

He seemed very disappointed, but gave up.

Helen was about to leave when her eyes swept once more over the half-empty racks. They made a halt at a pair of small orange pumpkin face candles. They weren't exactly... nice, no, actually the line between trashy and funny was a very thin and subjective one when one would look at them, yet she somehow thought they'd do a nice halloweeny decoration on this evening. Besides, it would give her the pretext to turn off the lights, and create a better atmosphere.

"I'll take these." She pointed at the two candles and turned back to the man from before. He raised his eyebrows, then shrugged.

"Well, why not, let's see what happens." He said. Helen frowned at those words, but then, she thought, he was just a little peculiar.

She paid, then placed the candles in her purse and left.

Some fifteen minutes later she arrived at Giles' apartment. One last deep breath before she rang his doorbell.

Giles' heart jumped at the sound, once more he ran his hand nervously through his hair, then opened the door.

"Hello." He greeted her with a wide smile and let her step in.

She put off her coat which he then took and hung it next to the door.

"I've brought wine." She gave him the bottle, then began to search in her purse and after a moment she pulled out the two pumpkin face candles. "And these."

Giles was looking a little confused and she blushed immediately, already regretting having bought it. "I-I thought perhaps a little-eh... Halloween mood... sadly they didn't have any vampire costumes left, so... I had to settle for these." She looked up at him, hoping he found that funny at least.

"Uh-... those-uh... are great... I've actually got candy somewhere, you want some?" He walked over into his kitchen and from underneath a bar he pulled a plate full of bon-bons and candies. Helen laid the two candles down on a coffee table, then went over to the bar. "Yes, sure." They both were eating the candies for a while, making some innocent small talk. Then Giles took two glasses and poured some red wine in them and they moved to the living room.

"Oh," Helen exclaimed. "You wanted to show me some of your albums, from the sixties, right?"

"Mhm." He nodded while taking a sip from his glass. "Please, sit down." He told her, motioning to the sofa. He went to his player and put on a record. The music was... very different than anything Helen had heard before, yet she had to admit after a while, that it wasn't unpleasant. It was... well, since she had only been listening to classics her whole life, she rather lacked the words to describe it, but yes, she actually liked it. She had been fearing that it'd be shallow, merely some horrible noise with entirely meaningless lyrics, yet this wasn't any of it. The longer she was listening to it, the more it occurred to her that this music wasn't that much unlike the stuff she used to listen to. It too had its own story to tell, only it helped itself with different means of expression.

"It's Cream." Giles said. She turned her head at him, a little unfocussed. "The band. It's what they're called." He sat next to her on the sofa.

"Hm. They-eh... they're quite good, I must say. I mean, not that I can judge it, since I'm really stuck in the 1900s right now..."

"They're one of my favourites, one of the best bands ever, when you ask me."

Another glass or two later Giles had replaced Cream with Pink Floyd and they were sitting comfortably, talking about diverse serious and less serious things.

"Did you find it hard to come here? Away from England, to be a Watcher to a girl you didn't know at all?" She asked him.

"No, not particularly. To be honest I was glad, even eager to leave... the museum..." He began explaining.

"Because of your father." She said nodding. Giles looked at her in surprise.

"How-?"

"I have my moments." She said sheepishly. "I guessed."

"W-well yes. It was..." He sighed. "I was grateful for the chance of leaving."

"What happened... between you two?" She asked, but then shook her head, feeling that she might be too inquisitive. "You-you don't have to tell me if you don't-"

"It's-uh... a long story. I-uh... He-uh... did things I don't understand, nor can forgive... I'd rather not get into it right now." He took his glass again, then added sarcastically: "The topic tends to spoil the parties."

"Sorry, I didn't want-"

Giles shook his head vehemently. "Tell me something about you instead." He challenged her and Helen squirmed a little.

"What would you like to know? I can't promise I'll tell, but-eh... give it a try."

"Alright." He said, pretending to be thinking hard of something to ask, though he already had an idea. He had had just enough wine to be a little more daring.

"What's the T?" He shot out, hoping that this might bring her to tell more about her wizarding past. After all he already knew about Helen _Thornton_ and found it hard to keep it from her...

Helen looked at him puzzled, then frowned. She had no idea what he was talking about.

"The _T_, in your name? On the label at your office it says Helen _T_. McGregor..."

She raised her eyebrows now. "Oh, that... is it really there? I can't remember I've put it on any paper..." She murmured thoughtfully.

Giles was still looking at her with question in his eyes.

She smiled at him now a little embarrassed, then looked down at her hands. "Eh-... it's my-eh... second name. It's somewhat-eh... odd, you see our father had this-eh... greek obsession... a spleen..." She looked back at him and sighed, before saying resigned. "Theophanu. _Helena Theophanu._.. and then, well - _McGregor_, he obviously had no sense for matching-"

"Theophanu? !" Now it was Giles who was utterly perplexed again, as he had not expected this.

"Yes. She was the-"

"The wife of the emperor Otto II and the empress of the Holy Roman Empire, yes, I know who she was." He said in a contemplating voice.

Helen nodded, slightly taken aback, but not really surprised. He probably knew just about everything.

"Any more questions?" She said after a while when he was deepened in thoughts.

"Why did you leave England? And decided to come here where you knew no one?" He decided for a more direct approach.

"Well, that unfortunately falls into the _cannot-answer-don't-want-to-talk-about-_category." She said and Giles looked disappointed, so she hurried to add. "Basically, I just needed fresh air, perhaps like you."

"Fresh air?" He chuckled. "And? Did it-uh... have you got it?"

She gave him this look as if to say that the answer was so obvious. "Sure, look here, not only fresh air! I mean, I've got so much more – I've got vampires, hyena spirits, mad ravaging invisible teenagers, krakens, zombies, ends of the world like... what... every even Saturday..."

Giles laughed now. "I see. So it's fair to say you've got more than you could have possibly hoped for?" He said still chuckling into his glass, then looked at her.

She was blushing now and it took her a few moments before she answered in a quiet calm, almost sleepy voice, starring at his face, wondering: "Perhaps."

Giles noticed that they had both ran out of wine, the bottle was empty now. He got up to get a new one. Helen stood up herself to take a closer look at his apartment. It was a very warm, very cosy place, though the candlelight might have added to that impression.

She came closer to inspect his book collection. There were some rare and valuable volumes.

"Oh!" She gasped, pulling one off the shelf. "You've got the first edition! I've never even seen it! I've been trying to acquire this for ages!" She said aloud and turned around, yet Giles already stood next her, offering her another glass. He looked at the book and smiled.

"Yes, it's very rare."

"Mhm, I'd say so." She opened the book and browsed it. It was from 1817, yet extremely well preserved. She sighed, murmured "_first edition, wow_", then put it back and took the glass from Giles.

They walked back to the sofa. Helen smiled to herself, remembering something.

"What is it?" He asked curiously.

She shook her head. "Hm, I just... I always wondered why there never was any stage performance of this, it's a masterpiece after all..."

Giles nodded. "It's a difficult one though. And Byron himself didn't intend it for the stage, if I'm correct. I suppose the settings did scare most of the producers off... but I agree, it's a pity, it would sure be marvellous, played on the stage, with the right actors."

"Yes." She said dreamily.

Suddenly Giles straightened himself up and gave her a curious look. Again the wine caused him being more playful, less stiffened. "Why don't _we_ do it?"

For a second there was shock in Helen's eyes at the question she did not understand.

He turned at her, his face revealing a sign of excitement. "We could perform it, here and now."

There was still this intrigued, disturbed look on her face.

"It wouldn't take too long, an hour perhaps or two..." He got up and went over to the bookshelves, then picked again the first edition of Byron's Manfred. Then he gave her a sheepish smile and said "Astarte?"

Now she understood. She stood up too and asked. "Are you sure?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. Well, you'll have to play the others as well, Astarte's got about four whole lines-"

"Five."

"Five."

They exchanged mischievous smiles.

"Good."

Giles opened the book on the first page, then prepared himself to speak, with an arm outstretched. "The lamp-" He said in a loud voice, but went silent almost immediately. "The lamp must-" He blushed and felt a little silly now. "How about we make it a reading?" He suggested, scratching his head.

Helen suppressed a smile and nodded. They sat back on the sofa, a little closer to each other now as they had to bow above the book that Giles held in one hand. The candles offered them just enough light to read the lines.

And so Giles began in his velvet voice again: "_The lamp must be replenish'd, but even then it will not burn so long..._."

Helen listened to the sound of his voice that was so pleasant, and wondered if she could bring him to record an audiobook... She could listen to it – always.

It was towards the end of the second act, right after the part where the phantom of Astarte had appeared to Manfred, when Helen felt a strange... sensation, hard to describe, as if someone outpoured a bucket of water over her, it was... odd, she shivered a little and looked at Giles who didn't seem to notice anything. Yet the feeling was gone as quick as it came.

"_Hear me, hear me, Astarte! My beloved! Speak to me..._ _I reck not what- but let me hear thee once – this once – once more!_" He said and turned at her.

"_Manfred!_" Helen exclaimed.

"_Say on, say on- I live but in the sound it is thy voice!_" _How true_, she thought amused for a moment, _that should have been my line_...

"_Manfred! Tomorrow ends thine earthly ills. Farewell!_" She said.

"_Yet one word more – am I forgiven?_" Giles was looking into her eyes eagerly.

"_Farewell!_" She said, putting on a blank, ghostly gaze.

"_Say, shall we meet again?_"

"_Farewell!_"

"_One word for mercy!_" Giles said louder now, then continued in a lower, yet pleading voice: "_Say, thou lovest me._"

"_Manfred._" Helen whispered the last line of Astarte's phantom.

Then Giles smiled and said in a little raspy voice. "Uff, it is an exhausting part, I think I understand now why they do it so rarely, I-uh..." He cleared his throat. "I can hardly talk anymore."

"Hm, yes, it seems so... we don't have to continue..." She said, then squirmed a little. "We don't-eh... have to talk..."_ Silly!_

There it was again, the moment from their "first date." They were looking into each others eyes, Giles put his glasses off and laid them on the coffee table along with the open book.

Their faces were once more approaching each other, lit only by the candlelight and the fire from the fireplace. Helen gave it one short cautious look, remembering the last time, but then she realized that they were at his place now, this was his apartment, his fireplace, fortunately not connected to the floo network, so she turned her eyes quickly back at him, to see in them again the enquiring, explorative look scanning her features.

They closed their eyes once again, ready, full of anticipation, finally... Their lips touched... yet it was... a feeling very different from what Giles remembered it was supposed to be like. It was... very wet, like a splash all over his face!

"Urghh!" Helen murmured, somewhat irritated, opening her eyes. Her lips were still upon his, but she couldn't feel them really, it was like touching jelly or something alike.

Giles was starring at her too, his expression alarmed. He felt it too, it wasn't any kiss, rather as if he had plunged his mouth into a large bowl of water.

"What-" He said, when they pulled off each other, but Helen's gasp broke off his sentence. It took her a while before she realized that it weren't _his_ lips that couldn't be felt, that somehow lost their matter, but _hers_.

She jumped up, her voice a little panicky now. "That's not how it should be... this... I haven't... it's been a long time, sure, but that's... it never..." She was babbling and Giles got up to calm her down. He wasn't sure how though, so he took their glasses from the coffee table and offered her hers. "Here." Helen glanced at him, then stretched out her hand to take the glass from him, but again, it felt like her hand went straight through it, she did feel something, some shade of the form, but couldn't grasp it and the moment Giles let go, the half full glass fell to the floor and broke.

"What the? !" She frowned at the spilt wine.

"Don't-... I'll get you another one." He was about to turn and go to the kitchen.

"Wait!" She said, still starring at the broken glass. Then she raiser her head, there was suspicion in her look, a foreboding. She said slowly: "Touch me."

Giles blushed now and laid his glass back on the table, thinking hard what she might be intending.

"Rupert," she repeated, more insisting. "Take my hand, please." She raised her right hand towards him, it was shaking slightly.

He hesitated for a moment, then took it... no, his hand sank into it, literally...

"Ahh!" He cried out in shock and they both stepped aside immediately, their eyes widened in horror.

"I am a ghost? !" She said, the story of Professor Binns, her predecessor at Hogwarts, popped into her mind, who one day, without realizing, woke up, being a ghost, just like that, without a warning...

Yet before they could say something more or think of an explanation, suddenly out of nothing, Willow, wearing not much of clothes, entered the apartment. Well, _entered_ wasn't quite the word, she actually walked in _through_ the wall.

"Oh, good, you're here!" She said relieved.

They both gave her a strange look, still unable to speak.

Willow seemed now to have noticed the closeness between them and her face blushed a little. "I'm sorry, to disturb you at... well... what you were doing, but... we have a big problem, Giles!"

Giles now turned towards the girl, avoiding Helen's look. _How could she turn into a ghost? Was this perhaps my fault, somehow? Did I do something wrong?_

"What happened?" He walked to Willow.

"Something terrible is going on." She answered.

Giles now exchanged stealthy, worried looks with Helen. "Is it now?" He asked.

"Yes, we were just running the rounds with the kids, trick-and-treating, when all of sudden something weird happened, and everybody turned into their costumes... I mean into what they were impersonating... so the streets are now full of monsters, pirates... Xander is a soldier, he didn't recognize me..."

"What?"

"That's not the worst part though." She continued in an agitated tone. "Buffy."

"What is with her? Is she alright?" He asked concerned.

"She doesn't know who she is, or that she is the Slayer, she... she..." Willow looked at him a little guiltily, after all she and Buffy had sneaked into his office earlier in order to "borrow" the Watchers Diaries and, based on the early entries concerning Angel, Buffy rented the lady-gown at the costume place. "She... she thinks she's some lady from the 18th century..."

"Oh, dear." Giles said.

"...and I'm a ghost."

Now Giles and Helen looked at each other, both concerned, worried, yet also a little relieved. _It's not just me then,_ she thought.

Giles took a closer look at Willow, then asked carefully. "W-uh... a-a-a ghost of what-uh... are you exactly?"

The girl went red and covered her midriff with her arms, saying indignantly. "Well, this is nothing! You should have seen what Cordelia was wearing. A-a-a unitard, with cat things, like ears and tail and stuff."

"Good heavens! Uh-she-she-uh became an actual feline?"

Now Willow furrowed her eyebrows, saying slowly, wondering. "No... no, she was the same old Cordelia, only in a cat-costume."

"How then-?" Helen asked. This was all too confusing. _Why-... How-... Why was _she_ a ghost when she herself wasn't wearing any costume? And a ghost of what?_

"Hold on." Willow said. "Partytown. She told us she got her outfit at Partytown."

Helen still didn't understand.

"A-and everyone who changed, they acquired their costumes where?" Giles asked.

"We got ours at a new place. Ethan's."

Helen frowned now in disbelief. "Ethan's? I've been there, earlier today. That's where I got the candles."

Willow grinned. "Be thankful you didn't get anything else, otherwise you'd be..." She went silent as she saw the exchange of embarrassed looks between Helen and Giles. "You didn't... buy anything else there, right, any costume... or I-I don't want to know."

"It-uh... appears that Miss McGregor – Helen – is-uh... somewhat of a ghost too." Giles said.

"You were masquerading for a ghost too?" Willow asked in a happy surprise, that someone else might have found the ghost costume cool enough.

"No." Helen said in a hesitant tone. "I wasn't... masquerading... at all..."

Willow was perplexed now. "No, then... where is your body?"

"What do you mean?"

"Where did you leave your body? Mine is laying at this old lady's house, oh God, I hope no one will run into it..."

Giles stopped her, looking alarmed. "You-you left your body behind?"

"Uh-yes, it's not like I had much of a choice, is it?"

"We must go to this Ethan's place immediately, hopefully we'll find out what's going on." Giles said, took his coat off the hook and Helen's, yet when realizing she wouldn't be able to wear it, he murmured "Right" and placed it back.

"Is it far?" Giles asked as they were walking through the streets and loud screams could be heard from somewhere near.

"No." Willow and Helen answered at the same time.

Couple of minutes later they reached the store. It was dark, half empty, on the door hung the signboard Closed, yet when Giles touched the door handle, the door swung open. They all entered. The shop seemed to be deserted, as if someone had left in a hurry, though there still were a few costumes hanging on the racks. Then Willow pointed towards the curtain which led to the back of the shop. Slowly they walked towards it and entered a stock room. A small marble statue of what appeared to be some god laid on a table in the middle, its eyes glowing green.

"Janus. Roman mythical god." Giles said.

"What does this mean?" Helen asked.

"Primarily the division of self. Male and female, light and dark-"

"Chunky and creamy. Oh, no, wait, that's peanut butter." They raised their heads and saw a man, the one Helen talked to when she came earlier and bought the candles. Giles' face went pale and hardened.

"Willow, Helen, get out of here."

"But-" Willow objected.

"Now!" Giles said firmly.

"Go, Willow." Helen whispered to the girl and Willow obeyed at last, leaving them.

"You too, Helen."

"No, I'm not going anywhere. Who is this man?"

"Hello, Ethan." Giles addressed the man through pressed teeth.

"Hello, Ripper." The man said and a nasty smile played on his lips. For a moment they just glared at each other, there was something in Giles' eyes that she hadn't seen there before, although... it reminded her a little at the time when she told him about encountering Darla and Angel and he went so furious, his eyes so cold... she shivered at the memory.

"Helen, please..." Giles said once more without taking his eyes off the man.

"No! If this man is in any way responsible for whatever is going on here tonight, then I'm not leaving... you."

Giles laughed dryly, still not turning around at her, but fixing the other man with his eyes. "And what do you want to do? You can't do proper magic in your normal state, and you are a ghost now, you can't even hold your wand... there's _nothing_ you could do. You better go." He said coldly. The words pained him, he knew it would hurt her, but it was the best if she'd leave. This was his past, that came to haunt him, quite literally right now, and the last thing he wanted her to see was his "Ripper"-part coming to the surface...

Helen looked at him in shock, yet the statement made her less hurt and rather more angry and determined. "No! But thank you for pointing out how very useless I am, it wasn't necessary, believe me! And I'm not leaving!"

Giles closed his eyes, then finally turned around at her, he was clearly angry. "This does not concern you! I'll take care of it!"

She opened her mouth to protest further, when Giles quickly raised his hand and wanted to grab her arm to send her out with what little violence possible, yet his fingers again sank into the watery substance that was supposed to be her shoulder.

"Hey!" Helen cried out, a little gleefully. "I'm a ghost, remember?"

"Why don't I leave you two alone so that you can settle your differences ..." Ethan said.

"You stay were you are." Giles said coldly. He gave up on Helen. There was no time for arguing, while Buffy, the entire town in fact, was in danger.

"Aren't you pleased to see your old mate, Rupert?" Ethan grinned.

"I'm surprised I didn't guess it was you. This Halloween stunt stinks of Ethan Rayne."

"Yes, it does, doesn't it? I don't wish to blow my own trumpet, but – it's genius. The very embodiment of _be careful what you wish for._"

"It's sick, brutal, and it harms the innocent."

"Oh, and we all know that you are the champion of all innocents and all things pure and good, Rupert. It's quite a little act you've got going here, old mate."

"It's no act. It's who I am."

"And who are you? The Watcher, snivelling, tweed-clad guardian of the Slayer and her kin? I think not. I know who you are, Rupert, and I know what you're capable of. But they don't, do they?" He pointed with his head towards Helen. "They have no idea where you come from-"

"Break the spell, Ethan. Then leave this place and never come back."

"Why should I? What's in the bargain for me?"

"You get to live." Giles said in a quiet voice, yet the threat in it was unmistakeable. Helen couldn't help it, but was impressed how calm he was, how very intimidating and without shouting, yelling, without moving an eyebrow.

"Oh, Rupert, now you're scaring me." Ethan said, mocking.

Then a quick movement followed, that took Helen entirely by surprise. She was starring with wide opened eyes at Giles, who had hit Ethan hard, first into his stomach, then once more he punched his face with his whole force. She opened her mouth, yet was speechless.

"And you said the Ripper was long gone." Ethan moaned, wincing on the ground.

Giles took a handkerchief out of his pocket and cleaned his hand, then said unimpressed, and as cold and quiet as before: "Tell me how to stop the spell."

"Say _pretty please_." Ethan murmured, and immediately Giles kicked him hard into his stomach.

"Aargh!" It must have hurt like hell.

"Rupert!" Helen shouted aghast.

"Helen, I told you to leave." She was looking at the two men in horror, but didn't move.

"Tell me, how to break the spell." He repeated monotonously.

"Oh, common, Ripper, there were times when you'd have found it brilliant-" Another hard kick from Giles hit Ethan and he howled again. Helen came a little closer, unsure of what to do, she had never seen Giles like this, she had no idea that he was capable of this kind of rough violence and it unsettled her for she feared he was unpredictable, there was no way to tell what he'd do, how far he'd go...

"Now. Tell me how to break the spell."

"Janus. Break his statue." Ethan whispered. Giles looked towards the marble god, then approached it, Helen close behind him. He took it, lifted it over his head, then threw it on the floor, where it got smashed into pieces.

For a minute they were both simply starring at the broken statue, waiting for something to happen, a flash of light perhaps, anything indicating that it had any effect.

Then Giles turned around and saw that Ethan disappeared.

"Where-?" Giles ran out of the room, with Helen following him through the store. The entrance door stood open, they hurried out and stepped into the street, looking into both directions, but there was no sign of Ethan Rayne. Giles rubbed his forehead. "He's gone." He murmured, starring at the pavement, thinking.

"Well, did it work at least? Is the spell broken?" She asked.

Giles raised his head and looked at her strangely. "Well, there's one way to find out." He said and walked slowly towards her, the corners of his mouths twitching into a smile, which was confusing her. When he stood right in front of her, Helen was frowning, still waiting for an answer, completely unaware of what his intentions were.

He then raised his hands and tenderly, carefully even took her face into them. She could now feel his touch as it should be, quickly realizing that she was of human flesh again after all, and before she could react in any way or express any sign of relief over this, she saw his eyes close and his face bowing to hers, then she closed her eyes too and soon indeed could feel his lips upon hers, a sensation so delightful as he was gently kissing her, his tongue not pushing, the kisses not hungry, but very slow, savouring every single second of this first long desired, long attempted kiss, enjoying the knowledge that it finally happened, very much aware and feeling that they deserved it after all, that this was their sweet reward after all the previous mishaps, failed approaches and disruptions.

_AN: So, that's it for now, hope you enjoyed, describing kisses – not my strength, so I leave the rest to your imagination :) _

_Explanations are in order in the next chapter, Ripper and stuff... Please review, comment, nag :) Let me know how you find it._


	16. Chapter 16: Confessions

Chapter 16

Confessions

_AN: Here's a short next chapter, I'm leaving for a couple of days, might not update for a week or two, so I decided to post this at least... Enjoy._

When their lips finally parted, Helen was glad that Giles was holding her, for she feared she'd go to the ground – her knees felt that weak.

"Merlin, it's good to have lips again." She whispered, looking deep into his eyes. Giles was beaming at her, then pressed another short kiss upon her lips as to agree with her words once more, then let go of her.

"Shall we?" He motioned in the direction of his apartment.

For a while they were walking in silence. Helen shivered a little at the cold and Giles noticed, so he offered her his jacket immediately.

"Thanks." She said thankfully. _I love tweed!_

"I feel I-uh... owe you some explanation." He said in an earnest tone. "About what happened back there, with Ethan... you must have been-uh..."

"Scared?" She finished.

Giles looked at her anxiously.

"I won't pretend I wasn't." She said, but was smiling appeasingly. Then she paused and made a halt. She was trying to say something but was obviously searching for the right words. Giles waited, watching her. When she finally spoke in a slow, cautious manner, her eyes were fixed upon the pavement, her hands, now almost entirely tucked in by the too large sleeves of Giles' jacket, were playing with her necklace. "Eh-... you must not think me naïve... when I say this... even if it might sound foolish to you... I'm not a fool though... or at least not when it comes to this... I trust... you... despite what I saw tonight I trust that you are a good person, a _righteous-_eh man, well, according to my own perception of good and right at least... I can feel it- and don't laugh at me, my instincts have not failed me before..." She was now looking into his eyes. "What I mean to say... you don't owe me... explanations or anything... I'd have accepted it as it is because I have trust in you... if it is something from your past that does not have–... if it bears no consequences for the present... something you left behind... you don't have to tell... if you don't wish, I'll understand."

Giles seemed somewhat taken aback by these words, so she added. "Which does not mean that I won't listen or care if you tell me."

He smiled at her now, thinking about what she said. On one hand he was... honoured? flattered? – that she thought him _good_, although he wasn't sure he deserved that, considering precisely his past, but he understood what she meant, it was as he said to Ethan – he was this now, the Watcher; Ripper was his infamous past, yes, but now he was on the right side and it felt good, fulfilling, to fight the dark forces, the evil. Yet on the other hand he couldn't help but think that she was also talking about herself in a way, that it was some sort of a plea, where she reversed their roles, meaning that _he_ should not care for _her_ past either, that whatever her past was, he himself could trust her as well.

"Thank you." He spoke after a while, when they moved again. "That-uh... I appreciate it, yet I feel that, given what you saw, I should tell you, to-to avoid you making your own conclusions-uh. To make things clear...I-I can't let it-uh... stay, unexplained."

"Alright." She answered. They reached Giles' apartment at last. Helen put off his coat and disappeared in the bathroom while Giles cleaned away the broken glass and the spilt wine from earlier. Then he got a new glass for her and opened a new bottle. Before he would pour the wine in, he hesitated, then laid it away and took from his bar table the bottle with Whiskey and two other small glasses. _I might need something stronger for this_, he thought. When Helen returned, he offered her the Whiskey, which she took without a word, and they sat on the sofa once more.

"It is a long story, not easy to retell, not because of its complexity nor because of the time it lays ago, simply because it-eh... it reminds me of what I once was, of things I had done, people, circles I had been moving among... it's nothing to be proud of. I'm still..."

She laid her hand upon his arm. "You don't have to-" She felt sorry for him, she didn't want him to go through anything painful, any bitter recollections, not for her sake. But Giles was determined to get it out, he shook his head vehemently.

"I won't bore you with every detail, with every single fact from my youth..." He smiled tensely. "You already know that I didn't want to become a watcher when I was a child, yet as my father pointed out to me, and my grandmother on several occasions, it was not my choice to make. And I had accepted it... then... I-uh... did the training without nagging, without complaining I attended the school, read the books, learned about demons and how to fight them. Then-uh... upon one of our, let's say final watcher-exams... something went wrong..." His voice hardened now as he continued saying: "Something my father and the council were responsible for... and it cost the lives of..." It was hard to talk about it. Giles realized a little astonished that he hadn't spoken of it with anyone – he wouldn't count the awful argument he had with his father short afterwards. "... of some other... watchers-to-be..." He took a sip of his Whiskey, the memory of the cemetery, of that demon, of its needle-like fingers, its disgusting clingy proboscis touching his forehead... He shivered, then refilled his empty glass. He needed not to tell her every detail. "After that I dropped out, and turned my back at the council, my father and my destiny, that I'd never chosen. For once I had decided to take my fate into my own hands, to determine my path by myself."

Helen nodded in understanding.

"Yet I did not choose to..." He paused, thinking how to put it all in words. "On that evening at the cemetery the last piece of innocence there had been in me, the last part unharmed, untouched, _pure_ even if you will, was gone... thanks to what I saw, what I had to endure in those few seconds... after I left... I-uh..." He sighed and shook his head a little. "I often wondered if there was any other way for me to go... To say there wasn't, that after what happened I could have only become what I became, to say it was all their fault, to put the entire blame upon my father and the council – that would be nice, it would be easy... but I'm not sure. That is a... a doubt I'll have to live with... that I might have chosen- that I might have gone differently, despite what had happened then." _That it might have saved a few lives and souls if I had..._ He gave her a short look only to see her dark eyes piercing through him, hanging on his lips. "But back to-uh... Ethan... I began to study history, at Oxford, but soon broke off and left for London. I fell in with the worst crowd that would have me... We practised magicks, earth-magicks, not-uh... wand-uh... magic. At first it was small stuff, for pleasure or gain...but then, after a while, we got bored... the over and over played tricks of simple levitation or-or setting things on fire – it was like conjuring bunnies out of a hat or flowers from a sleeve, they weren't enough, there was no challenge in them anymore. We wanted more, we wanted to-uh... to see how far we could go, to cross the lines... as young people often do..." The corners of his mouth were now twitching, as if he wanted to smile at the words, but couldn't really. "So Ethan and I – he was the most skilled among us, also the most-uh... _inventive_..." He spoke the word with an unmistakeable sarcasm. "...we began to dabble into higher stuff."

Helen raised her eyebrows.

"Demons." Giles said dryly. "Thanks to my watcher training I had the necessary knowledge, Ethan had the skills and the power... and the guts, the nerve..."

"Power to what?" She asked in a calm voice when he paused for a moment.

"To summon them..."

Her eyes widened now.

"It was... an extraordinary high, it-it exceeded our expectations entirely... First we'd summon some small, harmless creatures, then we would let them scare some people in the streets... later, as we advanced in our powers, our-uh... repertoire... expanded too. The demons became larger, more dangerous, more sophisticated even, as was the magicks that it took to call them. With every new achievement we became more ambitious..." Again he gave her a short look. "You must despise me..."

"No," She said in a tone that made Giles believe it. "Both of my husbands hadn't been exactly saints either..." She regretted the sentence the moment the words slipped her lips. _How could you make a comparison like that... and at this point here of all times... when he seems to be hurting enough? !_ Yet in that moment Giles thought less of being compared with her husbands rather than it occurred to him that this was the first time she spoke of them at all, it was a first evidence from her past she gave away voluntarily... "I'm sorry, that... forget what I just said. I meant-eh... rather that-that..." She sighed nervously. "I couldn't possibly despise you... because of that..."

"But we did such foolish, terrible things..." He continued.

"Hasn't everyone? At some point in their past... done something... misguided, silly?" She asked in a calm voice that was suggesting that he shouldn't be too hard on himself.

Giles smiled bitterly. _Silly, misguided_, those were euphemisms really where his and Ethan's actions were concerned...

"However, we kept summoning the most horrible, nasty demons we could find in our books... we would play them against each other, learning so which one was the stronger, the meaner one, and when we got bored with that, we would set them out, in a dark alley, in a park in London, or near pub at night, where it would lurk around waiting for some drunkards to come out and then haunt them down... We would have our laugh, then summon the demon back, stop it or destroy it with magicks... but every time we pushed the line a little further until..."

She was looking at him afraid, but from what he said it wasn't hard to guess what would follow. She tilted her head slightly to one side, her eyes indicating that he didn't have to continue, but Giles was determined. It was long past time that he told someone and got it out. He wasn't sure whether it would bring him any relief, whether he would feel better afterwards, he doubted it, the stain somewhere inside him would not disappear, but...

"... until on one night-uh... it got out of hand..." He took a deep breath. "It was on old man, drunk, and singing, walking or rather rolling home, when it got him... the demon _we_ had summoned... I still don't know how-how it happened, it all went so fast... it wasn't even the most vicious thing we had conjured, yet... a moment of hesitation, of inattention... the man was dead, his neck had been snapped..."

Helen waited for a moment whether he'd continue and when he didn't but drank his whiskey, she said: "I'm sorry... for the man, for you... It must have been a grave burden... that you've had to live with it since then... it couldn't have been easy, I imagine..." She laid her hand again on his arm, unsure of what else to say, how to make him clear that – terrible as it was – she wouldn't condemn him for it.

Giles kept piercing into his almost empty glass. "No, it hasn't been... I see his dead face almost every day when I wake up, his wide opened eyes starring into nowhere, a constant reminder of what we had done once... You might have experienced the same after you had killed that Lestrange woman in the Battle perhaps..."

"What?" She asked shortly.

Giles gave her an apologetic. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that... to compare those two things is egregious... I just meant... what you might have felt then..." He went silent as he saw her expression, the horrid realization got him. _Oh no!_

She let go of his arm and was starring at him in what seemed to be pure shock, her lips open, moving but no words came through.

"I-I-I..." He began to stammer. "I can e-explain..."

"What did you-? How did you-? What..." There was surprise in her tone, astonishment, wondering, but also a trace of panic coming through. Once more she tried to compose herself: "How... do you know about...?"

He rubbed his forehead, looking at her nervously. "I-I-I asked a friend, some months ago, who-who knew about wizards... to-to send me some-"

"You were spying on me?" She asked, clearly there was now also an angry amazement to be heard.

"No! No-uh, no. I-I merely wanted to know more about Hogwarts and the Battle you had mentioned-"

"So you were spying on me, behind my back-"

"I wasn't." He said a little louder then as she kept interrupting him. "It was because of the Council connection that I asked James whether he could provide me with some information a-about your... world, about the wizards, about the important events within their-uh community that could have had any significance for the Watchers Council-"

She didn't seem to be listening at all, but rather thinking hard. She cut him off once again as she stood up abruptly. "What else did he tell you? How much?" She asked quietly, yet urging, fearing the answer, her hand reached into her pocket and caught her wand.

Giles frowned at the question. "He didn't tell me, he-uh... sent me a-a newspaper, a Daily Prophet..." He saw her face becoming paler. "It-it only wrote about the Battle, about-uh... how you killed that odious woman, and without your wand-"

She raised her hand in front of her chest, now holding the mahogany stick in her right, shaking her head vehemently. "I can't."

Giles' eyes widened as he saw the wand, afraid of what she was about to do. "Now sure that's no need to turn me into-" Then he heard a loud pop – and she was gone, disappeared. _-into a toad..._ he finished his sentence for himself. _Or to disappear like that... Now I don't think that's fair... whatever my crime..._ he thought.

Helen apparated near her home and as she was walking now the few remaining metres to the house she thought just how great a fool she had made out of herself, talking about all that codswallop at first, about _trust_ and how _good_ he was and how she had all the _faith_ in him and other crap... she felt so terribly embarrassed... Yet even now, after he had deceived her, she didn't feel her instincts change, didn't actually feel... betrayed, just... could it be that she had misjudged him so much before?... Her inner voice was whispering a clear _no_ to her...

Oh, it was too much to think about right now, she thought as she reached her front door... and realized that she left her purse in his apartment. _Great_.

Giles was still standing in his living room, scratching his head, repeating _You idiot!_ all over to himself. He should have told her earlier, he should have known, nothing good ever came out of concealing things... Another loud pop sound pulled him out of his thoughts. When he raised his head, he saw Helen suddenly out of nothing, standing in front of him, she was looking around herself, then her eyes fell on the small table next to the sofa.

"I forgot my purse." She said a little embarrassed, then walked over to the table and took the small bag. When she turned around he stood right next to her, very close, too close. He caught her arm, the one that held her wand.

"Please. Don't... I wasn't spying on you, though it might appear so to you now, nor did I intend to deceive you... When I asked Robson for something, anything, about wizards, it was out of sheer curiosity, and rather out of... of some sense of bitterness, over the council. I didn't mean- I wasn't asking about you, I didn't even tell him your name... when he sent me those things I hardly could have expected your involvement in that battle being so... deep..."

She was looking at him with earnest, but not angry eyes, tired. "You could have asked me." She said finally.

Giles looked now at the ground. "Well, it was at the time... you-uh... made your appearance rather-uh... scarce." He said remembering the talk from back then, after which she wouldn't come to the library for many weeks. "Besides... would you really have told me?" He asked, glancing at her with a soft smile, that was already implying the answer that she wouldn't. "You are-uh-"

"Annoying, I know"

"-a mystery..."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, no one had ever called her _that_. Well, after a moment of hesitation she decided to take it as a compliment, albeit a little odd. "Alright, so I probably wouldn't have told you, but that's still no reason to go asking behind my back." She said.

Giles gave her this glare, then said in a patient tone: "I already told you, I wasn't asking behind your back. The information concerning you was... attached, I obtained it-uh... accidentally."

She glared back now, but only half as earnest as before: "What else have you-eh – _accidentally_ – obtained?"

"Nothing. It was a single copy of the Daily Prophet, reporting on the Battle, most of it dealt with the Chosen Boy, Harry-uh... Potter I believe..."

She nodded thoughtfully, trying to recall the paper herself.

"Is it true... have you really... killed the woman – without your wand?" He asked.

"Hm?... Yes." She said absentmindedly. "Look, I'd like to get home, it's been a really long and _really_ eventful night, in just too many ways... I'm tired, confused, it's been all too much, too much for one night, too many stories, too many... ghosts, supernaturals, too much wine, and whiskey and..., too much everything, and not enough- hmmpf-"

He cut off her babbling pressing a kiss on her lips, taking her by surprise. She closed her eyes, didn't struggle. It was very gentle, Helen had the absurd impression that he tried to put a last, a final apology into that one kiss.

"-kisses..." She finished dreamily.

And for the second time that evening she was relieved to find herself in his arms, as her knees were about to let her down literally. However this time she owed that less to the effect of Giles' lips rather than to that of the two apparitions.

"I-eh... really should get home now..." She said in a nervous whisper, then her hand jumped to her nose, and indeed, as she had been fearing, the warm red liquid was already pouring out of it.

"You're-" He began.

"Bleeding, I know... It's the apparition... do you-eh... have any tissue or some small kerchief I could borrow... or not-eh borrow... hardly... Something that I could-eh... bleed over and ruin?"

"Sure. Here." With one hand he pulled out of his trousers the white handkerchief he used to wear in his pocket for cleaning his glasses, his other hand still holding her firmly.

She took it, murmuring "Thanks", then put it under her nose.

"Well, then perhaps you shouldn't do it again... I can drive you home." He said, looking down at her concerned.

She shook her head. "No, thanks, but the soonder I'm hombe the better."

He finally let go of her. "Alright."

She gave him one last look, then turned on her spot and with another loud popping noise she disappeared.

The following Sunday Giles went once again to the costume shop of his former friend. He wanted to make sure, that Ethan was gone for good. The store looked exactly the same as before, empty racks and shelves, few of the hallstands were lying on the floor, it all appeared to be deserted. Giles was just feeling the satisfaction and the relief, assuming that his threat had worked, when he heard a quiet voice from behind the curtain, where the stock room was.

"_That's what he called her_." Giles froze. Then the voice went silent for a short moment and Giles thought Ethan might have heard him, before he realized that he was talking to someone on the phone.

"_Well, what are the odds_..." Giles heard Ethan saying in an unpleasant, gleeful voice that he came to hate over the years, the sound of it now didn't bode well.

"_Anytime. I guess I'll be seeing you around soon then_." Ethan said in a confident tone, then hung up.

Giles ripped the curtain open, glaring at Ethan in an intimidating way. "I thought I told you to leave." He said as quietly and sounding as terrifying as before when he had been asking him to break the spell.

"You did. I didn't. Shop's lease is paid till the end of the month."

Now Giles was approaching the other man who was slowly stepping backwards.

"Who were you talking to?" He asked Ethan. The latter narrowed his eyes, then smiled nastily.

"An old mate, you wouldn't know him."

"No? What was it all about? Whom did you mean by _her_?"

"Hmpf, wouldn't you like to know, Ripper... but I'm sorry, you made it quite clear the other night, that you don't want to be friends anymore." Ethan said, pretending for a moment to be hurt. "So I really don't think I can trust you with it... but... to give you something to think about, let's just say, next time you should choose more carefully what people you associate with." He was grinning at Giles who felt nothing but disgust with the man he himself once called friend.

He said through pressed teeth, afraid he'd lose his control soon: "I never. Want. To see you. Here. Again, Ethan."

"Then I'm afraid you'll have to close your eyes, Rupert." Ethan said, then walked cautiously past Giles and finally out of the store.

Giles once again realized, wondering, how much he could hate, just how much hatred there was in him towards this hideous man.

On his way back home he was thinking hard about what Ethan tried to imply, with whom he could have spoken, what about, whom he was referring to by mentioning a _her_ and what exactly the words _I'll be seeing you around soon_ meant. Giles had a bad feeling about it all, it unsettled him. He somehow had this premonition that it might, in some way, concern her, Helen.

On Monday morning Giles was sitting in the library, a book was lying open in front of him, but he wasn't reading. He was chewing one of the earpieces of his glasses, deepened in thoughts, when Xander and Willow walked in. He raised his head quickly at the sound of the footsteps, yet when he saw them, a disappointed look appeared on his face. It didn't escape the two.

"She's not here, G-man." Xander said.

"Who?" He tried to ask in an innocent, casual voice. Willow managed to suppress a smile.

"Miss Ghost-Witch!... Or Witch-Ghost?"

Giles frowned, but then he caught the guilty look at Willow's face and he knew that she must have told him about the Halloween events at his apartment.

"Don't-uh... call her that."

"I-is she alright?" Willow asked him. "She's not a ghost anymore, right?"

"No. We broke the spell and then-uh..." He remembered the kiss that had followed just _then_. He cleared his throat before continuing: "She's-uh... perfectly human again... Hang on, weren't you supposed to have a class with her today?"

"No." Xander drawled. "She's sick. A-gain... I wonder how comes Snyder hasn't fired her yet..."

"But she should be back tomorrow." Willow hurried to add when she saw Giles' concerned face.

"Yeah, unfortunately." Xander nagged. "And I still have to re-write that damn essay from last week..."

For a moment Giles was thinking, then he suddenly turned at Willow, an idea occurred to him.

"Willow. You would know – is there a possibility to-to track down who and where from had called a certain phone number at a certain time?" He asked.

Willow furrowed her brows, then said slowly. "Sure. What number?"

"Uh-... I-I don't know the number, but-uh... perhaps you can find that out too?" He got up and walked over to her, then bent down, talking fast. "I need to know who Ethan, the man from the costume shop was talking to yesterday-uh... around midday... could-could you do that?"

Willow shrugged her shoulders. "Sure. I take it that he was calling from a phone in the store?"

"Yes. Yes, he either called himself or had been called by someone, now I must know who this someone was or where they've been staying, anything."

"Alright. That's no challenge." Willow said, rubbing her hands. She got up and went to a computer. "The store was new, so it would be a new listing, I'll crack it, don't worry, Giles. Just give me a moment, it might take a while."

"Thank you."

After what to Giles seemed to be hours, Willow finally exclaimed: "A-ha!" He got up from his book again.

"I got it! Here it is." Giles stood now behind her, starring at the screen. "It's a number... oh... it's a Mexican number." She said in surprise.

"Mexican? !" Now Giles was as perplexed as her.

_AN: Thanks for reading, please leave some reviews, comments, did you find the Ripper-past-story believable? Convincing?_

_I left out the Eyghon story, for several reasons, mostly because I didn't feel like simply re-writing the episode, merely substituting Jenny, it just wouldn't be right. Yet the Eyghon-incident in Giles' past still could have happened this way, though I did not explicitly referred to it here..._

_Next one will hopefully be a little longer again, more action too :)_


	17. Chapter 17: Mexican concerns

Chapter 17

Mexican concerns

_AN: Yeah, the title sucks once again, sorry._

_Not much action in this one, but at least some serious talks are being had :)._

"Are you sure the number is in Mexico?" Giles asked Willow.

"Yes, look at the code, it _is_ a Mexican number."

"Can you see who it belongs to? A-a private person or...?"

"Well, that might take a little longer, it depends... Let me see..." Willow was typing something into the computer, Giles didn't even bother to try to follow her, she was too fast.

"Hm. That was... easy." Willow said after a short while, somewhat surprised herself. "Oh, no wonder, it's a hotel, in Puebla, _El Lucero_. Looks expensive..."

Giles was looking at the homepage of a rather luxurious hotel, thinking, frowning. "I don't-uh suppose you could find or-uh... download or whatever the word is... the list of their guests somehow?" He asked slowly.

Willow gave him a look that was saying that to her nothing was impossible, and began again clicking and typing into the devil box, with Giles bowing over her shoulder. She turned back at him. "Eh... for this I'll actually really need a bit longer, Giles, it's not quite leg-, I mean it's more complicated, so..." She turned pink then gave him the most innocent look she could put on.

"Oh, alright, let me now then, when you've got it, I'll be in my office."

He left her work and went to his office, the book that he hadn't been reading at all still in his hands. He was thinking hard. Mexico. Who could Ethan have been talking to there? A person, or persons, in a hotel in Puebla... _This probably meant that they were just passing there, made a halt there on their way – where to? And what could they want with Helen? But was it really her they talked about? _He couldn't be absolutely certain, but he had this bad feeling... _Hm_, he raised his eyebrows doubtfully, he was almost sure that no friends of Ethan's would travel under their real names, but then, who knows, he might know someone from the guest list.

He was still sitting at his desk, staring blankly at his bookshelves, when Willow called him from the library.

"Giles? I've got it now. Shall I print it?"

He got up and went over to her. "Let me see."

"Here." She pointed at the screen.

"Can you see whether some of them checked out since yesterday?"

Willow scrolled the page to the right. "Yes, here. There are all the guests between October 1st and now, those who meanwhile checked out as well."

"Hm." Giles was looking over the names but couldn't detect anyone familiar. There were many English names but they didn't mean anything to him, neither did any of the persons who checked out after Sunday noon, after Ethan had talked to the unknown on the phone.

"Perhaps they weren't even guests there. It could be that they just called from there." Willow said, noticing his disappointed expression.

"Hm? Oh, yes, yes, you-you're right of course." He replied, still skimming the list.

"Hi, what's up?" They heard Buffy saying as she walked in in a happy mood.

"We're trying to track some bad guys in Mexico." Willow said.

"Uuuh, a new Big Bad in Mexico? Nice, I know what! Let's make a field trip!" She said enthusiastically, but Giles gave her a reproving glare.

"No field trip?" She asked begging.

When no one answered her she rolled her eyes and came closer to see what Giles and Willow were doing. "Ok. Can someone tell me what's going on?"

Giles' eyes kept staring thoughtfully at the screen as he murmured: "I'm not sure. It-uh... might be nothing, but-uh..." He then abruptly turned around and walked away to disappear in his office, and left the two girls watching him, Willow confused, Buffy rather irritated.

After a while of rummaging around in his manuscripts and documents Giles found what he'd been looking for – the small piece of paper on which Mr. Pescoe had written down Helen's phone number some days ago. He hesitated one last time, then seized the phone and dialled. It rang several times, he was about to hang up when she finally picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Ms.-uh- Helen? It's me, Giles." Suddenly he wasn't sure anymore if he should have bothered her with this. After all it was only a suspicion, he had no proof of anything, should he really alarm her? Yet then he thought, there's been enough concealment on both sides and it had always proved to be a mistake.

"Helen? Are you there?" He asked when she wasn't answering.

"H-hh, yes, yes, I'm here." She said in a curbed voice.

"Uh-I-I think we need to talk, there might be something going on that-that may concern you..." He was stammering into the speaker.

"Can't it wait until tomorrow?" She asked weakly.

"I-I'm not sure, to be honest. It's-uh... it's all not very clear, but I'd rather-uh... get it over with." _You idiot!_ He told himself,_ what a stupid remark._ "I mean – _because_ I'm not sure whether or how serious it is, I thought we'd better talk as soon as possible, you might-uh..."

"Alright. Can you come then? I'm at home the whole day."

"Of course... Can-can I bring you something? Do you need anything?"

"Oh, eh-... no, ... oh, wait, could you- I hate to ask, but I ran out of tea yesterday and it will take a few days before I'll get-"

"I'll bring you some." He said, smiling into the phone.

"Thanks."

"Alright. See you soon then."

They hung up, Giles took his coat and walked out of his office.

"I-uh...I'll be gone for a while." He said towards the three Scoobies, who kept looking at him slightly irritated. "Willow, could you... print... the list for me?"

"Sure."

He then took the papers and left. On his way to Helen's he made a stop at a small British shop ran by an old British couple, and bought a package of Earl Grey.

When he finally reached her door and rang, she greeted him with a tired, but pleased expression on her face.

"Hello. Come in." She stepped aside and let him enter.

"Thank you. Here. The tea." He gave her the small present.

"Oh, thank you! That's very kind. I'll make us a pot, what do you say?"

"Hm? Yes, yes, that-that's a good idea." He followed her into her kitchen. She put on some water to boil and prepared two teacups.

"Are-uh... are you alright?" He asked her, while giving her stealthy looks from top to bottom. "Willow and Xander said you were ill..."

She waved with her hand as to say it was not worth mentioning. "Oh, it's nothing, it's just the effects of the apparition, I'll be back tomorrow."

"Is it normal? Does it always happen to you?" He asked in his soft, calm voice.

She turned slightly pink. "Yes. I mean, ever since-eh... since I've lost some part of my magic, after the battle." She wouldn't look at him while telling this, but was preparing a can for the tea, pouring some of the new tea leaves into it.

"Hm... Yet you still seem to be able to perform a great deal of spells..."

Helen smiled bitterly. "Yes, don't I?"

"Yes. By what you told me I would have thought that you could hardly do any magic at all..." He said in a wondering tone and she got more and more tensed.

"No, it's different. It's-eh... I could do most of the usual, normal level spells, I guess, but-eh... the effects afterwards are harsh, it's... I'm not sure how to describe it to you so that you understand. It's as if you get – dried out, as if someone sucked you out entirely dry and left only some last drops of energy within you..."

"Does the Hellmouth make it worse you'd say?"

Helen frowned. "I don't know." She said slowly. The water was about to boil any second now. "You see I haven't been doing much of magic since then, I mean before I left for Sunnydale, so it's rather hard to tell really."

"But do you feel- or does it feel any different here, performing your magic here, than when you were in England?" He asked.

Helen shook her head. "I really can't tell... No, it doesn't. The odd thing is that I can't seem to be able to fight vampires, or other... things like the kraken, but then again, I have never before faced them elsewhere so it's impossible to tell."

Giles was nodding thoughtfully, for a moment they were both silent, then he said: "It must have been terrible for you, losing your powers like that..."

She wouldn't answer but kept playing with an empty teacup.

He was piercing at her, thinking about whether or not to ask the following question. "How exactly did you lose your magic?"

Helen felt a sharp pain inside, as if some cold invisible hand had gripped her stomach and tried to mash it. She looked at him, desperately. "I can't, I don't want to talk about it. I'm sorry. I understand you want to know, but I can't tell you." She said in a quiet, resigned voice, then continued more pleadingly. "It is of no importance anymore, it was my business, my doing alone, it did not concern anyone else and it is irrelevant right now. I'm trying to leave it behind me. To get over it, forget it. Please..." The water boiled and she turned her back to him to take it and pour it into the can. Her hands were shaking terribly, so Giles approached her.

"Let me." He gently took the boiler from her, then poured the water over the tea leaves.

She smiled a little embarrassed. "Thank you." She took the two teacups and motioned him to follow her into the living room.

They sat down on the sofa. Giles gave her a questioning look, apparently he was waiting for her to say something more.

"Please, forgive me for not telling you, I can't." She said.

Giles nodded. "Alright... perhaps one day you will. Trust me enough." He replied, sounding just a little bitter and disappointed, as he thought she wouldn't consider him trustworthy enough.

Helen turned at him. "Oh, no, please..." She began to protest vehemently. "It has nothing to do with trust." She said, yet unsure how to make him understand, she sighed and shook her head. "Trust has nothing to do with it, that's not the reason I don't want to talk about it with you, you must believe me... It's- I don't want to deal with it anymore." She gave him an insisting look, Giles smiled sadly at her. He still was disappointed. Yet when he thought of it, it appeared obvious to him that something terrible must have happened to her in that battle, and then, it probably was only natural that she wanted to leave it and start anew. However he hoped that she would tell him one day.

She saw from his expression that he accepted it. "So, what was so urgent that you wanted to talk about now?"

Giles took his teacup from the coffee table. "I-uh... I'm not quite sure whether – or how – urgent it is exactly, I just thought that you should know about it... I went to Ethan's yesterday."

"So he hasn't left then?"

"No, against my hopes – and my threats – he hasn't."

"Well, do you think he might be causing any more troubles?"

"Knowing Ethan, I'm sure he will, but I was rather hoping he would do it elsewhere..." He now looked at her. "When I came to his shop yesterday, I overheard a conversation he had with someone on the phone. Now I don't know-... it might be but a-a rash interpretation of mine, yet... I heard him mentioning someone, a woman, and I was under the impression that it might have meant you." He said slowly.

She was looking at him, her expression made it clear that she did not understand what he was trying to say.

"I heard Ethan saying the words _That's what he called her_."

She frowned.

"I assumed he might have been talking about you."

"Me?"

"Yes." Giles hesitated for a moment. "When I asked him whom he'd meant, he made-uh... a remark... that actually reinforced my suspicion."

"How so?"

"He wouldn't tell me any name, but he-uh... sort of made it obvious, more or less, that it did concern someone I know, someone I'm currently-uh... involved with." He went red and hurried to add. "I mean someone I'm associating with, right now... which – apart from Buffy – could apply to you. Only." He added quietly, now embarrassed over the fact that he had no other grown up friends or acquaintances.

As she was still looking at him quite puzzled, he took out of the pocket of his jacket the guest list from the Mexican hotel and gave it to her.

"Willow had tracked the phone number... I really didn't quite know what I was looking for, it just... it had unsettled me..."

"What's this?" She asked, staring at the papers.

"It's a guest list from a hotel, we – or Willow – found out that the person Ethan talked to was calling from a Hotel in Mexico, _El Lucera_, that's the-"

"Mexico? !" She looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. "Are you sure?" She got up and began to skim through the list, searching for a name.

"Yes." Giles replied, watching her confused. "Does- do you know any of them?"

Helen didn't answer, but was browsing the papers, then she murmured. "No... He's not on it."

"Who?"

"Hm?" She turned back to him.

"Who's not on it? Do you know anyone- you know who Ethan could have been talking to?" He looked at her in surprise. She shook her head, then sat again next to him on the sofa.

"No. I-eh..." She frowned and flipped once more through the few paper pages. "It can't really be, I don't see how." She said.

"See how what?"

"A few days ago, when I was talking to George and Ron," she pointed at the fireplace, "they mentioned that-eh... someone, a man called Rodolphus Lestrange, had been seen in Mexico some time ago. Some wizards there had encountered him and informed our Ministry, but-eh... apparently he had left before they could catch him."

"Lestrange? Is he any relative to that woman you killed?" Giles could remotely recall having read the name somewhere before, maybe in that wizard paper.

Helen gulped. "It's her husband. He's a Death Eater... They were the followers of Voldemort, Bellatrix and him, his most trusted and loyal servants." She said with a sign of contempt in her voice that Giles hadn't heard there before. "After the battle he was missing, he hadn't taken part in it himself, it was assumed that he might have been on some mission for Voldemort somewhere abroad. The other Death Eaters that were arrested stated that he hadn't been seen for weeks before the battle."

"And now he's in Mexico."

"He was at least, couple of weeks ago." They looked at each other for a while, both thinking hard. "I just don't see how he could-... It can't be him really."

"I admit the coincidence would be an odd one..." At his own words Giles remembered Ethan saying _Well, what are the odds_ into the phone... And what did he say then? Something about _I'll be seeing you around_?

"You don't understand. Someone like Rodolphus Lestrange would never be friends with Ethan, a muggle, that's-that's simply unthinkable. He despises muggles, even muggleborn wizards, they're beneath him, he would _never_ tie a bond with any of them." She said.

"Hm." Giles nodded. "Perhaps they're not friends."

"What do you mean?"

"I can hardly imagine Ethan having a friendship without digging any eminent benefit from it – for himself. They may not be friends, but maybe they're-uh... allies? Or simply know each other and-uh... exchange information for mutual profit?"

Helen didn't seem convinced by this theory. She couldn't imagine Rodolphus associating with someone like Ethan Rayne, a slimy, sneaky muggle, even if he had some magicks. Those weren't real, in the eyes of Rodolphus probably just a pathetic attempt of a muggle to compensate his lack of the _true_, the _only right_ magic that had to be flowing through one's veins. She couldn't believe that he would – even for gathering information – talk to Ethan. Rodolphus might be a nasty, evil, cruel man, with entirely perverted views, yet he'd remain, or so she thought at least, most faithful to his own and his late master's principles. It was nothing but a sheer coincidence, a striking one for sure, but then – Mexico is a large country, and Ethan surely has plenty of friends...

Giles saw her doubts and the more he thought of it, the more it occurred to him, how very unlikely it was. "Well, we can't be certain, that's for true..."

"If there is no other evidence than the talk you overheard, then no, we can't... Are you sure he wasn't just teasing you? Maybe he heard you coming and then just-eh... I don't know... just pretended to be talking to someone... and for all we know he could have been making a-a reservation in that hotel to spend a nice weeklong vacation in Puebla."

Giles smiled. She seemed to want to lighten him up. And maybe she was right and it was a big misunderstanding on his part. Yet Ethan's words – _I guess I'll be seeing you around soon then_ – kept echoing in his head like a bad omen.

"Yes, maybe you're right. I wish you were... But let's-uh... let's just keep our eyes open, just in case it was so." He didn't want to close the topic entirely, something about it was still worrying him. "Could it-uh... could this Lestrange want to seek revenge? Could he... wish to find you?" He asked.

Helen wondered for a moment, strangely she hadn't been looking at it from that perspective. When she heard Rodolphus had turned up, she was just thinking of him as of another escaped Death Eater who would hopefully be caught one day and put to justice. "I guess." She replied slowly, then looked at Giles' concerned face. "Don't worry, I'm sure it's not as you think." He wanted to protest, so she added in a louder voice. "And even if it was, I'd manage, it's not the end of the world." She smiled at him widely, implying that they both have faced much worse threats than a single, though vicious wizard in the past year.

"But would you really be a match for him? In your state?"

"Hey, don't write me off, I'm not that weak." She said, half amused, pretending to be offended.

"I-I'm sorry, I know you had killed his wife, but that was then-"

"I wouldn't want to _kill_ him." She said in an earnest tone, with just a tiny trace of indignation. "A stunning spell, or disarming, that would do. Then someone would come to collect him."

"Right."

Again Giles found it very difficult to control his curiosity, his thirst to know more about her past. After a short moment of silence he asked. "What-uh... what did you feel when you killed her then, in the battle?" He wasn't sure she would answer, but the question was occupying him ever since he had found out that she had killed Bellatrix, for even when he knew that her circumstances had been entirely different, he couldn't help but feel that that was one thing they had in common. He was wondering how she might have dealt with it, has she regretted it even at some point? And, rather irrationally and perhaps a little selfish but understandable he thought and hoped somehow that hearing from her, hearing from someone else talking about it, it would ease his own guilt over the death of the old drunkard from back then.

She sounded calm when she spoke, only the slight shaking of her hands would betray her: "Nothing... I couldn't feel anything, anymore... I was-eh... empty, numb... at the time I stood against her, my husband was dead, I was-eh... a fresh widow for the second time in my life... I had walked past the corps of one of my best friends, whom I hadn't even had the chance to reconcile with... and finally, only few moments before I fought Bellatrix I had watched my brother die in a duel... you see it's like an ending from Shakespeare, in that battle I literally lost the last few people I cared for. So at the time I killed her, I could feel nothing further, not even satisfaction, no joy, no sorrow..." She stared into her teacup, her gaze was blank as she was remembering the scenes from what followed. "I could hardly hear the voices of the people talking at me, I saw the short astonished look on Voldemort's face as he realized that his most devoted servant was dead, for a split of a second there was shock in his eyes, but he recovered quickly. After all he never had cared for them, for any of them. They weren't but instruments to achieve his goals, useful, but worthless in the end, replaceable." She was talking more to herself now.

"Have you ever regretted it? Killing her?"

She raised her head to look at him. "No. Not as such. I acted in self-defence, and-eh... she wasn't the only one to die at my hands on that night, other Death Eaters..." Yet she found it hard to continue. Should she feel ashamed that she had no regrets for killing a dozen of murderers? "I did however have my-eh... troubles dealing with the... the world... where I had to use my powers like that... What I did regret was that I had to live in a place at a time where I wouldn't even regret killing other wizards, where I had no choice..." She laughed weakly. "I'm sorry, it was quite a gibberish what I just said, I sometimes get confused by my own thoughts too... But that notion – having to take lives in order to make ours better – that was kind of hard to digest afterwards." Then she added quietly: "Especially when one might wonder sometimes whether it was worth it."

"I understand." Giles replied, thinking about what she just said. She had been forced to kill, by the circumstances, for self-preservation, for some higher good she was convinced was the right thing. She wasn't blaming herself, although obviously she felt sorry, even troubled, but for different reasons than him. Because his case, terrible as it was, was much simpler. It was a mistake. The man's death was an accident, but one that his conscious choice of the dubious lifestyle and fishy friends had led to. There had been no reward afterwards, no better world, it was a senseless death, he thought.

Helen noticed his tormented expression. "What is it?" She asked him.

"Nothing... Just-uh... once more I had to think how foolish I had been back then."

She knew the incident with the drunken man was on his mind. She shook her head. "Stop comparing those things." She said, laying a hand on his shoulder. She tried to put herself in his position, however she thought that those two events were simply too different. What he did was wrong, and he knew it very well, it was perfectly clear to him, no room there for other perspectives on that point, and he has been living with the clarity of the remorse ever since. She on the other hand lived with doubts in a way, doubts whether the life after the battle really was better or wasn't the price for it just too high, the sacrifices too great, not equalised by what came afterwards, doubts whether having magic really was a good thing...

What probably bothered Giles, she thought, was the thing he said last time, that he sometimes wondered just how much blame for choosing that path of dark magicks and summoning demons he could put on his father's head and the council's as a result of that misfortunate watchers exam for which they certainly were to blame and which might have determined his actions to a certain degree at least. And she knew she couldn't help him there with an answer, but could at least listen, help him to get it out, to talk about it.

"You're right. It's-uh... different. I am a killer, while you-"

"Would you stop it now? !" She said, looking at him outraged. "You're not a killer, it was an accident, a pitiful, regrettable accident, it got out of hand..."

Giles sighed, put down his glasses and rubbed his forehead. He knew somewhere that she was right, but he was still looking for some explanations, if not to say excuses. "After that-uh... demon at the cemetery I-uh... I just felt useless, I was angry, I hated every one of them, I felt that my whole childhood had been taken from me – for nothing. I had trained for seven years only to see, entirely helpless, my friends die. Well, we weren't close, not even friends really, but we were fellows, they were as well trained as me and it took not a minute to kill them."

Helen shivered a little.

Giles looked at her. "I'm sorry. What a gloomy conversation." He laughed tensely. "Perhaps we should talk about something more pleasant... Unless-uh... you want me to go, I don't want to intrude, maybe you'd like to rest."

"No, don't-eh... leave." She said, then filled his empty cup with more tea. "Here, you haven't even drunk your tea, so..."

"Right." He said beaming at her. She watched him for a moment, waiting whether or not he'd yet want to say more about that accident, but it didn't seem so.

"What are you doing on Christmas? Are you visiting someone, your family perhaps? Or staying here?" She finally asked.

Giles took his cup. "No, I'm staying here. No visits, no visitors." He took a sip of his tea. "Perhaps we could-uh... if you have no other plans... do something? Have a drink or a dinner?"

Her eyes widened, but the pleased expression disappeared immediately as she remembered: "Oh, no! I'm sorry, I'd love to, but I-eh... I was invited by some acquaintance of mine, back in summer, to spend Christmas with them and I sort of accepted." She looked at him disappointed, he could tell she was really sorry, which was a small satisfaction at least.

"That's alright."

"But perhaps some other time. Before? A pre-Christmas dinner?" She asked.

"Yes." Giles nodded in consent.

They drank from their cups, sitting comfortably.

"You play?" Giles asked pointing at the open piano.

"Hm? Yes, yes, I do. It helps when I-eh... when I'm like this, it calms down." She threw a look at the piano herself and blushed immediately when she saw the sheet music of Satie's _Son binocle_ and at once, as if on a trigger, remembered the old Giles-kissage-and-love-making-dream. Somewhat absurdly she feared the score would give her away that she'd think of him every time she was playing that piece over and over again. But, fortunately, he couldn't know.

"You?" She returned the question.

"Oh, no, I don't. But I do play a little guitar. Or I did earlier, back in my Oxford time, right before-uh... before I dropped out."

"Really?" She asked curiously. "Were you any good?"

"Well, not too bad, obviously not good enough to be a-uh... founding member of Pink Floyd, but-uh... it was ok. I haven't played it since many years though."

"Hm. Perhaps you should." She said.

Giles smiled. "Yes. Perhaps."

An hour later Giles finally left her, pressing a kiss on her lips as they parted at her front door. Amused he noticed her blushing and biting her lip afterwards.

"Good bye." She said, or whispered rather, her voice a little excited.

"Take care. See you tomorrow then." On his way back to school he made a detour over Ethan's shop, yet found it empty, no trace of Ethan, and the phone's been cut off. He still had this bad feeling about the whole thing with the Mexican phone call, however the talk with Helen appeased him a little. One way or another there wasn't much they could do right now apart from wait and see what or whether anything at all would happen.

To her own regret and despair Helen found herself buried in work during the following weeks before Christmas. She got herself left behind with her classes, owing it mostly to the many absences she had in the weeks past. This countered all her plans for any social engagements at first. Only in the last school week she managed to catch up with her schedule, and finally suggested to Giles that they could have their dinner on Friday. They agreed to go try out a new restaurant in town. Yet, in any case, this time she remembered to tell George and the others to _not_ show up in her fireplace later that night. After all, she would see them all in only a few days when she would fly over to stay at the Burrow for the Christmas Holiday.

It's been a nice evening. The dinner was acceptable, they talked monster stuff and exchanged their experiences with magical and demon creatures, yet when the music in the restaurant became so loud that they could hardly understand each other despite the fact that they were literally talking into each other's ear – which at times caused quite a few butterflies in their stomachs – they finally decided to leave.

"My place or yours?" Giles asked when they reached his car in the parking lot.

"Yours." She answered without a moment of thinking. "To keep up the order." She added smiling. Besides, she liked his place, it was very cosy, it was seldom that she felt that comfortable somewhere else than in her own home.

When they arrived, Giles went into the kitchen to get two glasses and a bottle of wine. He put them on the coffee table, then turned to his record player. He gave her a stealthy glance, but she was busy observing his book shelves, so he quickly unpacked a newly bought record, hid the wrapping in the pocket of his trousers, then placed the record on the player and turned it on. She got scared a little by the first forte bars of Beethoven's 5th piano concerto, then turned at Giles beaming, the small sparkles playing again in her dark eyes, exactly like on that evening in the theatre. _It definitely was worth the risk_, he thought staring into them. _Now let's just hope she won't notice that I'm hearing this stuff for the first time in my life_... And a little queasy feeling overcame him. He smiled back at her, rather unconvincing but she didn't seem to notice. She walked over to the coffee table, took her glass and he did the same.

"Cheers. To a happy Christmas." She said cheerfully.

"Cheers." They clinked their glasses, then sat down.

"How are you travelling this time?" He asked her.

She raised her head and couldn't suppress a wide grin. "I'm still not flying on a broomstick."

He laughed. "I-I didn't assume that. Anymore... So are you taking a plane again then?"

"Mhm." She nodded.

Giles frowned now, remembering the faces in her fireplace. "What was it with the Flew Powder your friend mentioned?"

"Floo Powder? It's a way of communication, or transportation. It's a-a sort of a network, where the fireplaces are connected. It allows wizards to travel from one such fireplace to another, or to communicate, as you saw it."

"And you can't travel from your fireplace directly?"

"No, I only have the license for head-communication here. Also the distance is too great. Besides, this way no one can just appear in my fireplace without an announcement."

_Well, almost_. She thought as she caught his raised eyebrows – he too must have thought of the other evening and the highly untimely appearance of Ron and George that spoiled their first intimate moment.

"What about some other ways? This George chap mentioned something else, didn't he, some _Portkey_."

"Yes, that's one of the possibilities. It is quite uncomfortable and very unpopular amongst wizards, especially when travelling long distances. The nearest Portkey from here is in Fort Worth, it'd bring you to the Ministry of Magic, right in London."

"And you don't want to take it."

"No. To apparate to Fort Worth would be-eh... you can imagine, you saw it, an apparition on that distance? I'd probably bleed to death afterwards." She said matter-of-factly.

"Right... Could I use a-a Portkey?" He asked curiously.

Helen wondered for a moment. "Hm. I don't see why not, actually. But I'm not sure. There might be some anti-muggle provisions made on them. Besides, if you'd want to keep your innards, you better not."

Giles frowned at those words.

"And what are you going to do over the holidays?" She asked him to change to subject.

"Uh... I need to do some research, especially on this-this Spike vampire and-uh... what appears to be his companion, a woman Buffy saw... Angel knows her. He-uh... he made her."

"Made her?"

"He turned her into a vampire."

Helen looked at him with shock in her eyes. "But- but I thought you said he doesn't feed on humans... but he still creates new vampires or-?"

"It had happened before the curse was placed upon him that restored his soul."

Helen nodded thoughtfully. The idea certainly was bizarre enough that they, the watcher and the slayer were teamed up with a vampire, a demon they ought to be slaying actually.

As if he'd guessed what was on her mind, Giles said: "He's been-uh... most helpful in the past year. We owe him our lives." He was of course referring to the start of the school year where Angel helped Buffy to fight the vampires that wanted to revive the master.

Yet still Helen wondered. From her experience – at least within the wizarding world no curse was irreversible, to every curse there was a cure – or in this case rather the opposite of a cure, since Angel's curse actually meant that the demon in him wouldn't take control. _There really is a cynical irony in it_... The thought of it made her slightly uncomfortable.

In truth Giles had been occupied with the very same thought since some time – wondering about the duration and the strength of the curse, but as it was impossible for him to find any accounts about it, he put it aside in hope they would never have to deal with it, that they would never get the chance to learn the Angelus he knew from the older Watchers Diaries.

"So you're going to spend your holidays working then?" She asked him, putting on a reproachful look.

"W-well," He began to stammer. "Not-uh... solely, I will certainly attend to some of my-uh... hobbies."

"Such as?"

"Uh... cross-referencing for example..." He didn't dare to raise his head at her to see what he was sure would be a very amused look. "Or-or... reading, I mean something other than vampire stuff... Oh, oh!" He got up to his feet abruptly and walked towards his writing desk. She watched him confused.

"I almost forgot." He rummaged between the old volumes laying there and loose sheets of paper until he found the thin poorly gift-wrapped package. He took it, then returned and sat back next to her on the sofa. "Here. Merry Christmas." He said and handed her the present.

It was her now, who was entirely taken by surprise. "Why... I don't have anything for you." She said unhappily.

"You already gave me one for last Christmas, remember?" He replied. "So consider us even."

She carefully began to unwrap it, still somewhat taken aback. When she finally removed the wrapping, she gasped, but then looked at him, and shook her head speechless. Giles was smiling sheepishly at her, sipping out of his wine glass. He knew he scored. He was actually feeling a little proud of himself. After all, it's been a really long time since he'd made someone a present... He was quite pleased with himself now that he didn't loose it obviously.

Helen's eyes were switching from Giles to the familiar cover of the 1817th first edition of Byron's Manfred and back.

"I... I can't accept this." She said. Giles' smile got even wider at her words, for somehow he had expected her to say just that.

"It's yours now though."

"But-eh..." She couldn't bring out another sentence. She was thinking too hard as to what this all meant.

"You said you've been looking for it since a long time, so... _here endeth thy quest_." He said in a deep voice like he'd done on the Halloween night when they were doing the reading, and it caused Helen goose bumps and she cringed a little as the urge to kiss him overcame her.

She gulped, then cleared her throat. "Hhh, thank you." She said laying her hands tenderly upon the booklet, she still couldn't quite believe that he gave it to her just like that. She fondled the cover once more, then placed the book carefully on the coffee table. Then she looked him in the eyes and after a moment she laughed embarrassed. "I don't actually know what else to say."

"Then don't." He replied in this charming, calm way that made her feel so comfortable.

And before she could do or say anything, he leaned closer to her, put his hand on her arm and his lips upon hers. Unconsciously she opened her mouth just a little, enough to invite his tongue in. But he took his time. He wanted to "research" her lips at first, those perfectly formed small red lines, like some gateway guarding her tongue, he was kissing them gently as if he wanted to please them so they would afterwards grant him, deserving, the access to their guarded treasure... _Ok, enough of the external research_... He slipped his tongue in and began to kiss her more passionately now, more hungrily. Helen now moved her body closer to his, laid one hand upon his thigh, the other touched gently his cheek... They were kissing like this for a while and suddenly it wasn't close enough. She hadn't been with anyone this close for... _well... whatever_... she thought as she felt his hand wandering from her hips downwards and she had to gasp a little at the touch. It tickled.

Giles could hardly control himself anymore, for his last "encounter" of this kind too laid quite some time in the past. He felt now the heat that remained left on those parts of his body that her hands would touch, and he wanted to feel it everywhere. Always. It was exciting, new even to a certain degree for him. He noticed her moving yet closer to him and the sensation was... indescribable... that she would want him this much... He ran his hand down her arm and down her hips, then sensed her stiffen a little and wince. Afraid that he might have done something wrong he pulled off abruptly to look at her.

She shivered, but was smiling at him, slightly out of breath. "I'm sorry, it just... it tickled." And she leaned back to him to kiss him again.

Outside one of the Sunnydale's churches was ringing midnight. Somehow as if the sound made them recollect themselves, they slowly parted their lips. It wasn't the time yet to go further. But the anticipation was high, and Giles enjoyed it. He took their glasses from the table and gave her hers. "Maybe a toast?"

"Alright." She whispered. "Then-eh... to a good... new year?" She suggested blushing.

Giles gave a short, meaningful nod. "I'm already-uh... looking forward to it." Once more they clinked their glasses.

Behind the window a dark tall figure, that was watching them, said in a low, smug voice: "And a good year you shall have. Miss Thornton." Then it turned to someone standing alongside. "I must say, Ethan, you never cease to amaze me."

_AN: Thanks for reading this far. I'd be really glad for any reviews. Once again I'm not too sure about Giles still being in character, and other stuff. So, feel free to make remarks, criticize, any comments, suggestions are most welcome :)_


	18. Chapter 18: Christmas

Chapter 18

Christmas

_AN: Sorry for taking so long this time. The title – doesn't really fit again. Enjoy (and review ;))_

About an hour later Giles finally drove Helen home. At her front door they shared one last kiss, then wished each other once more happy Christmas and parted. None of them noticed the dark tall man that had appeared some metres from them, hidden behind a bush, watching them. He smirked, then turned on the spot and disappeared.

Giles returned home, made himself one last glass of wine and tried hard not to think of just how long two weeks could be that laid ahead of him – fourteen whole days where he would not get to see her. Yet he smiled. It was a nice change for him, since years now he'd been usually just looking forward for _things_ to come, for new books to arrive and to add to his library, for new manuscripts to decipher, for new demons and supernatural challenges to emerge... Now there actually was a _person_ he could look forward to, to hear her voice, to see her smile, to smell her scent, to feel her touch... Suddenly that fortnight to come seemed to Giles like a year...

On the next morning Helen hastily packed a few things into her bag, then used a spell to reduce its size into a purse and left to the airport to catch her flight to London.

There at Heathrow a frowning, grim face of George Weasley greeted her after she had left the passport control. She smiled into herself.

"Hello, George, to what do I owe this happy greeting mood?"

He noticed her only now, as he had kept staring somewhere behind her. His face cheered up a little. "Oh, hi, here you are at last. My, this place is scary, let's go." He kept turning around, staring suspiciously at all the happy muggles loaded with large suitcases and bags full with Christmas presents, greeting joyfully their friends or relatives. They headed for the exits and towards the tube. "Actually, Percy was supposed to get you," George began to nag. "But he's got this girlfriend now, Rebecca Something, and he thinks he must spend all his time with her from dawn to dusk... Can you believe it? Percy? Someone's actually digging him?" He said in disbelief.

"Well..."

"And speaking of... how are the things going with you and the Watcher?" He looked up to her.

Helen went slightly red as the images from yesterday popped into her mind, remembering the touch of Giles' hands sliding down her waist. It had been the nicest evening for her in a very long time... "Fine." She replied, yet in a tone that made it clear that she wouldn't give away any details. However she smiled rather contentedly which didn't escape George and he grinned.

"I see." He drawled.

"What about Ginny and Harry?" She asked him before he could continue interrogating her.

"Nothing, mum won't give in... Ginny's playing the good, modest and patient daughter right now, but I can't imagine that lasting very long... And I'll give you an advice – if you want to get to eat, you better not mention it... Oh, and I have one more news."

He gave her meaningful look, but wouldn't say more as they finally reached the tube station and jumped on the train. "I'll tell you at dinner, no one knows yet."

Hours later George with Angelina, Ron, Ginny, Percy, Charlie, Arthur, Molly and Helen were sitting at the dining table in the Burrow; Harry and Hermione were supposed to arrive on the next day or the day after that. They had just finished their dinner when George solemnly stood up and put on an earnest look, that Helen knew very well to recognize it was only a pretence. She was sure that he was about to announce something that he was very happy about or possibly even proud of.

"Mum, dad, I have something serious to say..." He began in a grave, slow tone. "Now I don't know how it happened... Autch!" He turned to Angelina, who obviously gave him a kick under the table. "Well, actually, I think we all know _how_ it happened, what I mean is rather – although we did not exactly _plan_ for this to happen, somehow it did, and I think, you-" He bowed towards Molly, "and dad," he gave his father a short look, "are now by all means old enough..." Both George's parents were exchanging alarmed looks, suspicious and confused expressions over their faces were showing that they had no idea, and were rather fearing what their son was trying to say. "Well, to come to the point, I won't bore you with the details, but..." He grinned now as widely as he could. "You... are going to be... grandparents to a little grandson!"

"Or –daughter." Angelina hurried to add.

"Right. Whatever it may be – we are proud to announce that _Weasley The Next Generation_ has been officially released. Or will be. In seven months." He said pompously, like awaiting applause.

For a short moment there was grave silence and Helen saw George become a little uncomfortable, staring at his parents whose mouths were open, but they seemed unable to speak. Then Molly covered her mouth with a hand and shook her head, just before tears jumped out of her eyes. George looked at her horrified but she was already getting up and hurried to squeeze him in her arms, while Arthur stood up too and went to embrace – carefully – his daughter-in-law.

And while Molly was still whimpering and babbling somewhat taken aback how happy she was, what a great news this was for Christmas and the most beautiful present she could have wished for, the young couple was receiving congratulations and hugs from other members of the Weasley family.

"Good luck for tomorrow." Helen heard Ginny murmuring to George quietly. He looked at her, not understanding. "Fleur will be furious." She added with a little pleased grin. George still didn't understand. "It will spoil her Christmas entirely to know that her and Bill won't be the first ones to offer a grandchild."

George just shrugged. "Well, I'm sorry, I don't care. They should have applied themselves more."

"Do you have a name yet?" Helen asked though she had an idea.

"Yes, wasn't it obvious?" George asked frowning. "Fred of course."

They waited for him to say more.

"And if it's a girl?" Ginny asked then.

"Pff, who wants a girl? !" He said, but Helen knew he wouldn't mind.

"I do!" Angelina said loudly.

"Oh, right, her. Well, we haven't thought about that yet. But it won't be Fred then, obviously."

The next day Helen went outside, she wanted to spend the day alone, there would be enough people around in the coming few days so she wanted to take this last chance and have some quiet time on her own. It was a nasty weather outside, it was cold and raining a little, but she didn't mind. Her thoughts were revolving about many things. She smiled at the idea of George becoming a father. He was so young, they both – him and Angelina – weren't 23 years old. True, the battle made them all older somehow... _They'd do good parents_, she thought. A little crazy maybe, hopefully their son won't set their house on fire at the age of two, playing with one of daddy's wizarding inventions... _Yes, it would do George very good, having some serious responsibility after all_.

Naturally she began to think of herself, for a moment she saw a scene of her and Claudius walking along the shore near their house, a little blond boy and a perhaps somewhat older blond girl running ahead, fighting or puddling in the water... It could have been nice. But she was too young then of course, she hadn't been thinking of having children just yet, and he, Claudius, didn't seem to care. He already had had a son, whom he lost, and he was old enough to pass on another child-experience, on yet another period of sleepless nights, of cries and shouts... And then he was gone. And then the world was getting darker and darker and there never seemed to be the right opportunity or time, until it was too late, again. Yet she did not regret it, having no children. She felt that she probably wouldn't have been a good parent anyway.

Now she wouldn't think of it, she wouldn't want any, she couldn't want any children anymore. Then automatically Giles popped into her mind and she felt her stomach make the sensational hop. Giles. Could he become her third man? Though she was far from superstitious, she wondered. How did the saying go? Something about _the third one shall be the best one_? Anyway, she wouldn't want any children, all she'd hope for – if she dared to hope – was at least a little time, a few years perhaps, of normal, mundane happiness, and she would wish for the phase of butterflies and stomach-hops to be a long one; some time, where they could just enjoy being with each other...

Giles was sitting on his sofa, reading, when the doorbell rang. He got up immediately and went to greet the guest he was expecting.

"Hello." He said, giving Angel a nervous look. "Please, come in."

The vampire bowed, waited for a short moment as if he wanted Giles to grasp all the consequences of his last, inviting words, then he entered.

"You wanted to talk?" He asked, sounding a bit impatient, or possibly even annoyed.

"Yes." Giles closed the door and motioned Angel to sit down. The look on the vampire's face was unsettling him. Angel seemed a little glum, almost unfriendly, he was watching Giles with furrowed eyebrows. "I-I'm sorry, I hope I didn't cross any of your-uh... Christmas plans-uh... by calling you." He said carefully.

"No, you didn't." Angel answered dryly. Then as if he noticed his own sullenness, he added: "It's just that the last time you wanted to talk it was about telling me of the prophecy that Buffy would go to the Master and die, and then the world would end."

Giles laughed, slightly relieved. "Oh, sorry, no, this time it's nothing like that... in fact-uh... it's not even about Buffy." He walked over to Angel who now took a seat in front of the fireplace. He sat opposite to him in an armchair, then frowned, the look at his own empty glass on the coffee table seemed to remind him of something. "I-I'm sorry, I'd offer you a-a drink, normally, but-uh... given your-uh... hh" He cleared his throat, avoiding Angel's look. He still felt a little uncomfortable around the vampire. "... your disposition..."

"It's ok. I already had something." Angel answered, then he met Giles' wide open eyes. "I got some blood from the butcher's... for which I pay." He added bemused now.

"Oh, very well... I wanted to talk about Helen, my-uh... the-the friend, I-I mean the colleague, you've met her a few times, and as you know she is a witch, a wand-witch."

Angel gave a short nod, looking at Giles, waiting for a question to come.

"It seems that-uh... she has difficulties performing her magic here." He began to explain. "Now she told me she lost some amount of her powers after a-a battle back in England, yet she also seemed certain that-uh... there is something about Sunnydale, about Hellmouth rather, that might – in addition to it – have a bad impact on her magic."

Angel now raised his eyebrows.

"You said, once as she-uh... tried to cast a spell upon you-you said it wouldn't work, you knew..."

"If you want to know how it works then I can't help you. I don't know much about it." The vampire said in his typical somewhat snappy way.

"B-but it is-uh... it is true then that Hellmouth, that this-uh... area is disturbing the kind of magic?"

"Yes. It doesn't work here the way it does elsewhere. Not against demons anyway."

"Yes, she said she cannot fight them, the vampires and other creatures."

"No, she can't. But I can't tell you why."

Now Giles was looking a little embarrassed. He had hoped that Angel would be able to offer him some explanations, that was the only reason he had called him. As it seemed now, their talk found its end then.

"Look, I'm sorry, I won't tell you much more. The Master would have known a whole lot about it I suppose. Maybe Darla even. But I don't. I'm not here that long."

Giles nodded understandingly.

"All I know is that it works," he paused now, thinking about the right expression, "it works... _reversed_ or something."

Giles raised his head again and frowned. "Reversed? How?"

"Not a clue." Angel shook his head. "I recall I heard Darla saying something, she used the phrase _it's_ _all reversed_, because some time ago someone did something... No idea what it means though."

Giles began to clean his glasses, thinking. Angel gave him a short look, a hardly distinguishable sign of impatience in his eyes, he would rather go if the Watcher had nothing else to ask.

"Have you-uh... have you ever... encountered wizards in your life, before?"

Angel hesitated. He dropped his look from Giles to the coffee table. Giles saw that the question caused him some discomfort.

"Not as such." He replied in a slow, cautious way. "I've never faced any in a fight if that's what you mean."

Giles sensed that the full answer to what he actually meant was probably a delicate matter to Angel who obviously was trying to avoid giving a whole account as to what sort of an encounter he had with the wizards in the past. Yet after a moment Angel shrugged, then said: "I've fed on some."

Now Giles squirmed, his eyes widened.

"It was some... hundreds of years ago, or around 1800, I think. In London. There's been some battle between the wizards and the vampires, I don't know what about. When we arrived, it was as good as over. Corpses were laying everywhere in the streets, of muggles and wizards, most of them were dead... but there were a few..." He closed his eyes and shivered a little. He could hear Darla's words now in his head of what she said on that night as he crossed her when she was about to bite the witch. _Remember what it felt like? The sensation of a wizard's blood? The inebriation? The power-trip_? _You must hunger for this more than me... _Oh, yes, he _did_ remember. He could recall the feeling very vividly, what it was like, having drunk a wizard's blood, the rush, the high, it was like a drug really. It set them into a world of no regrets, no cares – not that they really had any at that time, being without a soul – a complete euphoria overcame them, a feeling that they were almighty, that nothing could harm them, because nothing else than them existed, it felt... just perfect. Yet since then he hasn't had any drop of it, since the curse he has been rejecting human blood.

To think that now a witch was living within his reach, whose blood could prepare him the almost greatest pleasure, or even better – drinking her blood would make him forget everything, forget all about his murders and other dreadful things he'd done, would pull him out of this constant, often so unbearable state of enduring remorse and gloomy broodings over the meaning of his existence – if even just for a while... _Maybe you can politely ask her for a cup or two_, he thought cynically, then finally looked back at Giles, his gaze blank. He forgot what he was saying, but then he saw Giles' expression.

There was contempt in Giles' eyes, revulsion, though he tried to hide it immediately, telling himself, that that had been Angelus, the demon without a soul.

"They were dying, left behind." Angel said in a vane attempt to excuse his actions, but he was disgusted with himself too.

Giles rubbed his forehead, he didn't really know what to say. Yet Angel saved him the thinking, when he got up. "If you have nothing else to talk about, then..." He pointed at the door. Giles stood up.

"Uh-, yes, yes, of course, still, thank you for coming."

He followed the vampire to the door where Angel turned one last time back at him.

"Good bye, then."

"Good bye. And-uh...merry Christmas."

Angel gave a snort, which Giles couldn't quite interpret, then he left.

The time at the Burrow was passing by, though for Helen it was not fast enough. She felt restless, and once or twice she even caught herself regretting bitterly that she had accepted the invitation instead of staying in Sunnydale. She was wondering what Giles was doing and it was fair to say, that she was now thinking of him almost all the time. Also after a few days she was somewhat overstrained, she wasn't used to share a house with so many people, to be surrounded by so many persons, constantly doing her company, at breakfast, lunch and at dinner. Although she didn't doubt that they all loved and cared for each other, she still could perceive the fine resentments and the tensions, even temporary bitterness between some of them, not to mention the more visible conflicts that in one way or another were emerging every day. Fleur of course, even when she did her best to hide it, was disappointed by the baby-news of George and Angelina. Disappointed perhaps wasn't the word. She was happy for them, surely, but she envied them also. Charlie had what seemed to be the thousandth argument with his mother not only over his haircut, but Molly was again trying to persuade him to return to England and find work somewhere nearer to home. Percy on the other hand had to endure a sermon from his father: Apparently he had been neglecting his work at the Ministry in a most un-Percy-like manner, and was instead spending more and more time with his new girlfriend Rebecca, so that Arthur on several occasions had to put a good word for his son by Percy's boss so that he wouldn't fire him. As it happened, they all got to meet Rebecca on the Christmas Day and she in fact seemed to be a very charming young woman, the eldest Weasley was so much impressed by her that he could understand the weakness of his son and his work-skiving. But the affair that was having perhaps the most negative impact on the Christmas time was the proposal of Harry to Ginny, which Mrs. Weasley kept ignoring as if it hadn't happened and refusing to talk about it further. And even when everyone, including Harry himself did follow this rule, the icy silence and the tensed relation between Ginny and her mother was hard to escape their notice. The good, well-behaved, patient daughter-act which George had spoken of before indeed hadn't lasted very long.

After only a few days Helen found herself aching for her own four walls. Though she liked the Burrow a lot, it was a nice, warm place, she could never feel as comfortable there as at her own house. Or, as a matter of fact, as at Giles's. How she wished she could be sitting on his sofa right now, with the fire playing in the fireplace, some nice music, possibly this Cream Band, he would sit right next to her, she would gently take his glasses off and lay them on the coffee table, he'd lean over to her and began to whisper some things into her ear in his calm voice that would give her goose bumps again...

"There you are! I've been looking for you!" George exclaimed indignantly as he was approaching the bench she was sitting on. It was outside, a short walk away from the Burrow and behind a hill so that she would have no sight of the house and she had rather been hoping that she could spend there a few undisturbed moments.

She opened her eyes now and gave George a mopish look.

"What are you doing here?" He asked her frowning, but she just raised her eyebrows instead of answering.

"Aaaah, I see. You've stolen away to enjoy some quiet time with your Watcher."

Helen shook her head in disbelief, then laughed a little. She still didn't understand how this boy always seemed to know what was on her mind.

"However, I'm here to actually reprehend your irresponsible behaviour." He said in an instructive tone and put his arms on his hips.

"What?" She asked as if she didn't hear right.

"When were you planning on telling me that the portkey to the shore-house wasn't registered?"

She was frowning now at him. "What? !"

George was nodding, giving her the sternest look he could put on, like a teacher that was offering his pupil a last chance to come up with the correct reply.

"I see. You weren't at all, obviously. Well, that's not very kind not having told us. I had no idea and out of nothing, couple of weeks ago there were these nice chaps from that department of the Ministry visiting me at the shop."

She was unsure of whether he was just teasing her or was indeed serious. "What... chaps... what-eh... department?" He kept looking at her. _There was something about a registration?_... "Oh." Her expression showed that now she remembered. "Oooh, right." She covered her mouth with a hand and gave him an apologetic look. "I-eh... I forgot all about that, I'm afraid... Besides, I thought private portkeys to private places didn't need to be registered." She added. "Since when-"

Now she caught George's blushing cheeks and remembered the story behind it. "Right." The regulation of private portkeys registration in fact had been introduced as a consequence of some "accident" from couple of years ago. She has never heard the full history of it, but knew that the twins were involved somehow, though she suspected that they had probably played the _main_ roles in it. She had to smile. "So how did you get out of it then? I hope they didn't actually sconce you..." Helen could hardly suppress a laugh, there really was something very comic about the idea that George, who had been the reason for raising the very regulation, had himself been caught using an illegal portkey. Even if it wasn't his fault – who'd have believed it really? The corners of her mouth were twitching when she noticed George's glare.

"Well, it was close. But fortunately dad managed to persuade them. Nothing _I_ said would." He nagged. "But he swore to them that it was a mistake and that we got it as a gift." She looked alarmed for a second, so he hurried to say: "From them, he didn't tell them it was from you, he said, he and mum gave it to us and forgot all about the bumf... I'm not sure they bought it, with dad being _my_ father, but they let it be. I mean they had checked it, and now it's properly registered, it also had to be fixed to one place, so we've been keeping it at the Burrow for now."

"Good. That's good. I'm sorry, again." She said.

"Yeah, and it happened at the worst possible time."

"What do you mean?"

"I was just working on my positive image, as a reliable, trustworthy and responsible person," Helen looked a little appalled at those words, "in October I got the offer from Kingsley to work on their internet project, you know, to go _online_ – that's the word I believe. He asked me – me having the reputation of being very inventive when it comes to new spells-," he said with a clear sign of pride in his tone, "whether I wouldn't want to invent some protection spells around the net... But he needed to get the approval of some committee to let me on it, so you can imagine, the thing with the portkey, _your_ portkey, did slightly hurt my case." He said.

Helen was staring at him.

"Protection spells? _Serious_ protection spells? You? How ever did Kingsley come up with an idea like that? ! You're the last person anyone should entrust to perform a job of that kind. They would have to be insane to approve of that." She said.

George gave her a hurt look. "Thank you." He said sarcastically. "I'm grateful you were not on that committee."

"Sorry." She replied. "Just-"

"However, it seems they were – to use your words – _insane_ enough."

"No." She was shaking her head, not willing to believe that.

"Yes. Despite that unfortunate portkey affair, last week I've been officially assigned to work on it." He said ostentatiously.

Helen opened her mouth, then closed it again. After a moment she sighed, stating: "Well, now that my last faith in the sanity and order in this world has perished... what are we having for dinner?"

Now George sat next to her on the bench, exhaling wearily. "Not much, I fear. I wouldn't go there right now."

"Why not?"

"They're fighting again." He said in a bored undertone. "Ginny and mom. All men have fled the house in different directions, while Fleur stayed to take side of my mom, saying that Ginny is too young, while Angelina is backing up my little sister." He frowned. "I didn't even know they were so close."

"Hm."

"Anyway, it's hell down there."

"And? Whose side are you on?"

"Ah, I don't know, right now, the thing of me becoming a father in a few months is really everything I can think about."

"Right." She said and for a while they were sitting in silence, staring into the sky, watching the clouds. "Don't you think that your mother is right perhaps, I mean when one does overlook the fact that she's obviously using it as a pretext – and it is understandable I guess, in her position – when she does that to not have to admit she doesn't want to pay for a new wedding, because that's probably-"

"Stop babbling. What's your point?" He interrupted her calmly, as once again she got entangled in her own words.

"They're both so young, don't you think that maybe Ginny _is_ too young to get married just yet?"

George looked at her and grinned. "Hear, hear, said a lady who eloped with a Malfoy at a tender age of 19 years!"

"What-?"

"And I won't mention that he was old enough to be your father! How gross is that really? !"

"Now that was a completely different situation! Besides, I did not _elope_... Where did _you_ learn that word?"

"I read."

"No, you don't."

They stayed there, sitting on the bench, talking for another hour, then their hunger made them dare to return to the house and see whether they would get something to eat.

"Would you come to London with me tomorrow or the day after that?" She asked George on their way back. "I need to buy some stuff, and I wanted some things from your shop too."

"Really?"

"Yes, I need to get the kids, Buffy and the others, something for Christmas. I thought they might like something wizardy."

A wide smile appeared on George's face that announced nothing good. Helen noticed. "Or perhaps I shall ask Angelina to help me choose."

Then finally the day has come when Mr. Weasley, all excitement, accompanied her to the airport. She thanked him once more for having her at the Burrow, they wished each other all the best in the new year, and she took her flight back to Sunnydale.

The next Sunday Giles was thinking of calling her, he knew she was supposed to be back, but then he decided against it, she was probably having a rest, fighting the jetlag. He would see her on Monday.

And as expected and hoped for, after her classes Helen finally found her way to the library, carrying four small paper-bags with late Christmas presents for the Scoobies. The trio were sitting at the main table, talking about their Christmas-time – or in case of Willow of Hanukkah-time. She couldn't see Giles.

"Hi!" Willow greeted her enthusiastically. "How was your Christmas?"

Helen smiled at her. "Thank you, it was nice. And rainy."

"You've been in England with your folks?" Xander asked.

"Eh-yes... and-eh... I've brought you something." She dropped three of the bags on the table. "I thought you might find it-eh... funny."

Buffy took on of the packs and eyed curiously inside. "What is it?"

"It's-eh... all sorts of... wizard crap." Suddenly Willow and Xander grabbed the rest two bags and began to inspect the content. "Sweets, mostly. But also some funny stuff, some wizarding jokes, you know, some toys and-eh... entertainment-devices."

Someone behind her cleared his throat and Helen turned around to see Giles, standing in the doorway of his office, a book in his hand, glaring at the bags with the utmost suspicion and mistrust in his eyes. "Oh, don't worry." She addressed him, guessing he must have been thinking something like _oh, good, let's give Xander some wizard-tools_. "I've checked them, they're-eh... mostly harmless."

"Mostly?" Xander raised his head.

"I mean, they _are_ harmless. Really. I've tried it all." Giles was still looking a little sceptically.

"Cooool." Helen heard Buffy exclaim, then she turned back to the group. All three of them were busy examining the stuff, gasping now and then, and Xander again got scared a little at the moving little wooden boy of the Reusable Hangman.

Helen then walked over to Giles. "Hello." She said, smiling nervously at him. "I've got something for you too. Don't worry, it's only candy... mostly."

Giles closed the book with a loud snap and gave her a triumphant look. "I knew it!"

She shook her head slightly, not sure what he was talking about.

"I've been suspecting you'd do that." He said, motioning her to enter his office.

"Do what?" She asked, following him through the door.

"Bring another present, that you couldn't leave it at that." Helen frowned. "Fortunately, I've provided for this case." He laid the book on his desk, walked towards one of his bookshelves and took a gift wrapped object, then turned back at her. He saw the surprise in her eyes and felt a little silly now. "Sorry, you first." He said, clumsily hiding his hands with the gift behind his back.

Helen smiled, then offered him the fourth little bag with the label Weasley's Wizard Wheezes on it. "George, the friend you met in my fireplace, he runs-eh... a shop with wizarding jokes and sweets."

Giles took it and peered inside, took a CD out of the bag and gave Helen a questioning look.

"Oh, right, yes, that's not from him-"

"Was Satie a wizard too?" Giles asked, looking at the cover. It was Erik Satie, _Early piano works_-collection.

"No, no, he wasn't. Not to my knowledge at least... I'm not sure whether you'll like it, it's-eh... well, it's very different than Pink Floyd or Cream... Actually I was looking for one particular piece from him but I couldn't find it in any store nowhere in London." She said, and blushed immediately as he raised his eyes at her. "Anyway. There are nice things on it too... you have a CD-player at home?" She asked, remembering suddenly his vast records collection.

"Yes, yes, I do."

"Good." She said, then gave him an expecting look, as if saying she was done now.

"Right-uh..." He cleared his throat once more, then rubbed his forehead with one hand. "Do you have a-a record player?"

"Yes, I do."

Giles laughed a little relieved, then presented her with the Christmasy-wrapped record.

Helen gave it a curious look, then began to unwrap it.

"I-I heard it on the radio short before Christmas. I had thought then that perhaps it might be-uh... might be something you'd like." Then his expression became earnest, anxious even. "I hope you don't have it yet." Only now it occurred to him that – her being a music teacher – there may not be many things she wouldn't know already. But when she finally unpacked it, he saw in her eyes that it wasn't familiar.

"Ralph Vaughn Williams... No, I don't think I have much from him, not this anyway... _London Symphony, The Lark Ascending_..." She was reading the titles to herself. "Well, I can't wait to hear it, thank you."

They were about to kiss each other when Buffy entered and interrupted them. "So Giles, do you want me to patrol tonight?"

During the following couple of weeks Helen was again too busy to do hardly anything else than preparing the midterm exams, assigning essays to students who in the last minute discovered that they didn't like their designated midterm grades and wanted to be given one last chance to improve them, and finally the grading of it all. On top of it Principal Snyder had made some nasty remarks about her previous absences, which made her feel a little nervous and she was minding to do the things better than properly to not give him any reason to complain about her any more. _Or_ _I could use the imperius curse on him, in case of need_, she thought ironically on several occasions when she was panicking, fearing she wouldn't manage to read and mark all the essays in time.

At last at the end of the month, when the grades had been established, the half-year reports filled out, on a Sunday evening Helen found herself sitting in a restaurant opposite to Giles, very tired. Giles noticed her yawning for a number of times during their conversation and was unsure of whether she was so bored or just really exhausted.

"I'm sorry, I'm not a good company tonight. But it shall be better, when I get my deserved sleep." She smiled. "I spent the whole day yesterday in my office, going through the last papers and exams and some difficult cases, brooding over their grades... I hate it, I'm always not sure whether I'm being too hard on some or too soft, you know..."

Giles nodded. "I understand. I'm glad I don't have to do that."

She tried to suppress another yawn and that for Giles was the signal that perhaps it was best to bring her home. She gave him an apologetic look, then they both got up, he paid and they left.

"Oh, I haven't properly thanked you for the record you gave me!" She said as they were walking the way to her house. "It's beautiful!" She noticed he didn't know what she was talking about. "The Vaughn Williams record?"

"Oh." He said, then gave her a stolen look, to see whether she was just saying it to please him or meaning it.

"I haven't heard anything so lovely in a long time now, really. The London Symphony was... ok, pretty good too, sure, but the last piece, the Lark... wow. It really got me, it was... breathtaking actually."

Giles kept nodding, he remembered the evening when he heard the piece on the radio, some classic program he was just listening to accidentally, and at once he thought of her.

"Though I must admit I wouldn't necessarily associate the violin with a lark, somehow..."

"That's exactly what I thought!" Giles exclaimed, feeling a little like a student, happy that his own observations have now been affirmed and shared by his favourite teacher.

She smiled. "I think I'm going to put it on and then throw myself onto the covers and hopefully have a good night with undisturbed deep sleep. Thank Merlin for the Career Week, beginning tomorrow, at least I get a day off." She said when they almost reached her house.

Though Giles had had other plans for tonight, plans that did not end at her or his front door, he saw that he would have to postpone them. She seemed really tired and he didn't want to be pushing it too fast. So he just kissed her good night, with a kiss that indeed for a second made her hesitate and try to convince herself that she might not be as sleepy after all... but then he said "Good night" and she knew it was better to part.

"Good night." She replied with dreamy eyes, then stepped into her house and after a moment closed the door behind her.

She put her purse down on a dresser in the anteroom and was about to take a look at her in the mirror when a noise coming from the living room caught her attention. She furrowed her brows. _Hm, it's not Friday, but still_... She sighed, thinking _George, once again you picked hell of a time to pay a visit_... She went to the living room. "George, I hope you have some good reas-"

Helen froze. There leaning in a slack manner onto the fireplace stood a tall dark haired man. Though she has never met him in person, his face wasn't unknown to her, she recognized him at once.

"Hello, Helen." He drawled. "No, it's not George, or any of those bloodtraitors." His hand was playing with a wand. Helen's touched the pocket of her trousers where she was carrying her wand. He noticed. She thought hard what to do, where to move.

He bowed. "Oh, please, don't be shy. Do take out your wand, by all means. I hear you're not very good without it anymore." He said, in a false sympathetic undertone. She fixed him with her eyes then reached for her wand and took it out. She gulped, trying to remain calm. What was he doing here? How did he find her?

"Rodolphus." She finally said.

"Oh, sorry, you're right of course. We haven't met yet face to face, I forgot." He spoke in voice that had something boy-like about it, something rascally, playful even. He pushed himself off the fireplace and began to walk towards her. Helen's heartbeat got faster.

"_Stupe_-"

"_Crucio_!" He stopped her before she could finish her spell and instead a flash of light hit her. She fell to the ground, hit her head hard on the edge of the coffee table. But that pain from the small wound on her forehead was nothing compared to the familiar one that was spreading through her whole body now, as if thousands of thick needles were running through it, up and down and being constantly turned by thousands of invisible hands. It was excruciating and what wasn't but one minute felt like hours of torture, before Rodolphus finally broke off the spell. Helen was panting, lying on her back, she didn't know how she managed to keep her wand in her hand.

"Sorry. Couldn't help it." He said, mocking, pretending that he was embarrassed by having lost control.

"Reviving-eh... the... old-eh... habits...?" Helen whispered, while trying to sit up.

"Something like that." She got up to her feet. "And while I'm at that- _sectumsempra_!" He shouted, the malicious joy and the unpleasant grin disappeared from his face now, instead it was showing the pure hate that he felt towards her. A hate that was passionate and that made it clear that he did not come to just kill her, but that he wanted to hurt her as much as he could.

Helen felt several cuts opening on her skin under her clothes, and felt blood pouring out of them. It hurt, but not as much as the cruciatus curse before. But there was something else that made her now outraged.

"How dare you? !" She shouted at him and the anger in her voice seemed to have surprised him a little. "_Impedimenta!_" She said, pointing her wand at him, using his short hesitation. The curse hit him and he froze, unable to move. Helen was frantically looking around herself, skimming the living room, hoping that an answer as to what to do right now would jump at her from somewhere. She was afraid that, given her _handicap_, the spell might wear off soon. She ran back to the anteroom to retrieve her purse, then in the doorway she gave Rodolphus, who still couldn't move but was glaring at her in a most sinister way, a last uncertain look, then disapparated.

Giles was about to unlock his door when he heard the phone ringing. He hurried to pick it up, wondering who might be calling at this late hour.

"Hello?"

"Rupert? It's James. I hope I'm not disturbing you." The voice of his friend and former colleague in the council Robson greeted him.

"Oh, hello, James. No-uh. How are you doing?"

"Thanks. Quite well. Why I'm calling is... I wanted to talk to you, I have something... I thought you should perhaps know about."

"Oh?" Giles sat down at his desk.

"I met your father at Christmas. At the museum."

Giles' expression hardened. _Not now_, he thought.

"I was there doing a tour with my grandson and I saw Henry... He was meeting with Lord Caversham, you remember Andrew Caversham, he used to be in the council until some ten-fifteen years ago. They were just parting when I ran into them in the Great Court." He paused, waiting whether Giles would say anything, but when he didn't, Robson continued. "He told me some interesting things."

"What things?" Giles asked, sounding a little warier than he intended to.

"I mean not your father. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to talk to _him_ properly, he was busy and had to go then. Before they noticed me, I heard Lord Caversham saying something about a-a betrayal, a scandal, your father seemed to agree with him."

"Yes, I imagine he should know a lot about betrayal."

"Rupert," Robson began in a reprehensive tone.

"I'm sorry... let's just-uh... what is it you wanted to tell me?" Giles asked, putting down his glasses.

"Well, after Henry left us, I had a very odd conversation with Lord Andrew, concerning wizards."

Now Giles was listening more attentively.

"He appeared to be very... outraged, well, scandalized by something, but I couldn't detect what exactly it was. I was under the impression that he was... angry, furious actually – with Quentin. He was babbling a lot, most of it was very incoherent, he is a very old man after all, and every two minutes he kept repeating what a scandal it all was... However I think I've understood now what these relations with the wizards were all about, you know you mentioned that department at the Ministry of Magic, I never really knew what they were doing, I just assumed they were keeping each other informed. Well, from what Lord Andrew said it seems that there's been more into it. Apparently the department has been working as some sort of a control body."

"Controlling what?"

"They are supposed to make sure, that no wizards ever become watchers. That no aspiring members of the council have wand-magic."

Giles frowned. This was intriguing, but he felt too tired now to think about it.

"Both parties seem to be interested that no one would find himself disposing over both the wand-magic and the access to our, watchers' knowledge, to the rituals of earth magic... There might be some old story behind it, as it often is, I'm guessing probably something went wrong in the past, but... I haven't had time yet to go deeper into it. Besides I don't really know how, or whom to ask."

Giles gave a contemplative "Hm" as a reply.

"From what else he said," Robson continued, in a little hesitant, more quiet tone now, "as far as I was able to put it together, I deduced that your father, when he found out about the existence of wizards, which apparently was quite late as well, only after the-eh... the... after your failed final exam at the Highgate Cemetery, well afterwards he suggested to the council a cooperation with the wizards, he proposed that they'd admit them to the council itself, even demanded to make them watchers... Caversham told me Henry's arguments were that-eh... things like the accident with the Lorophage demon that had cost the lives of your fellows... that it could have been prevented – had there been someone with the abilities to react in a much faster manner, immediately, someone precisely with a wand."

Giles remained silent. Right now he didn't know how to treat all these bits of news.

"He was refused. Naturally... Rupert? Are you still there?"

"Hm? Yes, yes, I'm here...Uh-thank you for calling me, I'm sorry-uh," Giles ran his hand through his hair. "I-uh... I get back to you, I need to think about it all, to sleep over it."

"Yes, I understand, it took me a few days too to comprehend it all... I'm actually sure I still don't quite get it." The older man laughed to himself.

Giles smiled absentmindedly. "Mhm."

"And Rupert?"

"Yes?"

Robson was about to tell him that probably it was about time he tried to renew the contact to his father, but then he just swallowed the counsel. "Nothing. Good night. Call me when you have more time."

"I will. Thank you, James." He hung up. After a while sitting on the chair, staring at his diary, he finally walked up to his bedroom and went to sleep. He would think about it all tomorrow.

_AN: Thanks for reading. An update will hopefully follow soon. Please do leave a review :)_


	19. Chapter 19: Rodolphus Lestrange

Chapter 19

Rodolphus Lestrange

_AN: It's career week time here :) I assume you all probably know the both episodes _What's my line _too well, so I tried not to repeat it all... I'm sorry if it's a little un-dramatic that way._

On the next day Giles wasn't very willing to deal with the news he had received from Robson the previous night, particularly not with the thoughts of his father just yet. He decided that indexing the Watchers' diaries was just the occupation that would keep him far away from any such. He knew Helen wouldn't come today, so no distraction would arise from that part. Several teachers had got a free day due to the career week that was starting now and in which most of the classes were participating. The volumes of what his predecessors had left behind were so tedious to go through that even on the next day he still wasn't finished with indexing the first half of them. However just before midday Buffy reported to him casually that during her patrol last night, she caught some vampires stealing something from a crypt. Together then they went to investigate the place, in order to find out what exactly the vampires might have taken. The discovery that the robbed crypt had been the last resting place of Josephus Du Lac, a member of a religious sect, made Giles shiver. He remembered that some time ago a vampire had stolen a book from the library, a book that was written by the very same Du Lac and that was supposed to contain rituals of the most evil nature, but it was also written in an old fashioned Latin, impossible to understand for anyone but members of the sect.

After a first research round Giles feared, that what had been stolen from the crypt, was a "Du Lac cross", a sort of an instrument that would help to decipher the otherwise unreadable text. Yet they still had no idea what exactly would have been in the book and thus how the vampires, who had stolen it, intended to use it. It unsettled them all, for – one way or another – it surely meant trouble.

By the next day things got a little clearer, though not better. Quite the contrary, their assumption that something evil was in motion, got affirmed: Previous night Buffy had been attacked by a member of the Order of Taraka. And while Xander was making jokes about them and Buffy hadn't really considered them a threat, since she had killed the man that attacked her, Giles pointed out to her, that Order of Taraka was a society of deadly assassins, who wouldn't stop coming after her. No matter how many she would kill, there'd always be a replacement. He managed to quite scare her when he suggested to her, just like Angel did the night before, that it perhaps would be for the best if she would hide at some safe place for a while.

During the following sleepless research night Giles found out that what was in the missing volume of Du Lac was an instruction to perform some sort of a reviving ritual that would bring a sick and weakened vampire back to its full strength. They had all the reason to believe that Spike was going to attempt performing the ritual to restore Drusilla's health.

The whole affair took then even a more confusing turn when a girl showed up and attacked Buffy, claiming that she was a vampire slayer. It had turned out that Buffy's temporary death couple of months ago had indeed activated a new slayer – Kendra, who now came to Sunnydale to take care of the evil that was to come and that her Watcher had instructed her to eliminate.

Despite the differences between her and Buffy and their striking contrary characters they joined their forces. After he had been in research mode for several hours, Giles was able to figure out, that in order to perform the reviving ritual Spike needed Angel, as he was the vampire that had sired Drusilla, a new moon, which also was tonight, and a church – and those really weren't scarce in Sunnydale.

They were lucky. With the involuntary help of Willy, the owner of a shabby looking bar where vampires and other non-human creatures used to socialise, short after the sunset Buffy had found the church in question and together with the rest of the Scoobies, Cordelia and Kendra they stopped the ritual just in time to save Angel. They defeated the two remaining members of the Order of Taraka and Spike with Drusilla were buried by the crashing church. All seemed well. Though Angel was badly hurt, his wounds would heal in a short time. Buffy and Kendra were to help him back to his apartment.

The rest of them were walking in the direction of the school. Giles wanted to clean up a little, then call Helen at last. He hasn't seen her for the past four days and was eager to talk to her. He wasn't sure why but when he thought that now was the time to reflect on the news Robson had given him, it immediately occurred to him that he wanted to discuss it with _her_. Though he didn't really expect her to have anything particular to say about it – it would probably be as new and even more confusing to her as to himself – but he was looking forward that there was an adult person with whom he could share it all and debate about.

"I guess-uh... I should call Helen, I haven't got the chance to talk to her the whole week..." He said as they were approaching the school.

"Is she better then?" Willow asked him.

Giles gave her a nonplussed look. "W-what do you mean? Why-why should she be better – better than what?"

"Well, she's been sick, hasn't she?"

Giles frowned. "Sick?"

"Yeah, and I can tell you, Snyder is not at all happy about it. We overheard him talking to this other teacher, Pescoe or what's his name, he was really mad." Xander said.

Giles was a little concerned. And ashamed that he didn't know. He hasn't seen her since the Sunday night. He had tried to call her on Monday evening, but she wasn't at home. On Tuesday he went to her office just to say hello, but when he didn't find her there he just assumed she might have got another day off because of the career week. And then he hardly had the chance to think of her with all the fuss that was going on with Spike and Drusilla...

She was perfectly well when they parted on Sunday, tired yes, but otherwise well off. On the other hand, he recalled that quite a few colleagues used to get sick at the end of a term, when all the strains of the last exams and grading papers were over, like some sort of a _cleansing flu_, as he had heard someone once referring to it ironically. _I'll call her now, ask whether she needs anything..._

Then another thought occurred to him: Or has she been doing magic? Is that perhaps the reason she's ill? But why? He was sure that she wouldn't cast spells unless she had to. And if she had to, then something was going on, something not good. How he hated reaching that conclusion... He sped up his walk without noticing.

"But I heard Principal Snyder say that she'd be back in her classes tomorrow." Willow said to cheer him up, when they finally reached the library.

"He said _she better really be here tomorrow_, Will." Xander said imitating the despiteful voice of the principal.

Giles didn't answer but hurried to the phone and dialled her number. After a few seconds he furrowed his eyebrows, then stared irritated at the receiver. He tried again, but the only thing he could hear at the other end was the beep tone telling him that he must have got a wrong number.

"What?" Xander asked as Giles kept holding the receiver in one hand, a thoughtful expression on his face.

Giles looked at him, still deep in thoughts.

"Why are we actually here?" Cordelia's slightly annoyed voice interrupted them.

Xander glanced at her, but before he could say anything nasty, Willow replied: "We came to clean the library, to help Giles put all the books and stuff back and out of the away before someone sees it."

Cordelia stared at her in disbelief. "And you couldn't have said so before? I wouldn't have bothered coming back... I don't care to help. I wanna go home now." She announced and gave Xander a weird look.

"No one's holding you back, Cordy." He said, and after that she looked a little offended, but then turned on her spot and left.

Giles looked at his watch, it was almost ten. He rubbed his forehead.

"What is it, Giles?" Willow noticed that something was bothering him.

"Her phone seems... deaf, I-uh... I think I'm going over, to-to check. On her."

Xander and Willow exchanged bemused looks, and Giles knew that they must have misinterpreted the meaning of the _checking_. "I-uh... just to see if-if she might need anything..." He said, then murmured rather to himself: "Besides I have this feeling that something's wrong."

"You do?" Willow asked.

"Yes. Her phone doesn't work, she hasn't been in since Monday..."

"Yes, but she'll be back tomorrow." Xander said casually.

Giles thought for a moment, then looked up at them. "I'm going to call at her place now. It's probably all right, but-uh..."

"Ok. We're going with you." Xander jumped up. "You never know, in case you'd need some reinforcement, against... something evil."

Giles glanced at him and Willow gave him a suspicious look.

"Right." Giles said and smiled amused, knowing that Xander was actually glad they had a reason to drop the cleaning up of the library.

Couple of minutes later they arrived at the dark end of the one-way-street, in front of Helen's house. They could see the lights on in what Giles guessed would be the living room and next to it the kitchen. They walked towards the door and there Giles squirmed. The door was open, only a few inches, the light from the anteroom created a tiny white stripe upon the ground of the veranda outside. They all exchanged puzzled looks and tried to listen for a moment whether they'd catch any voices or sounds, but as they couldn't hear anything they entered slowly, then closed the door behind them.

"Helen?" Giles said in a low voice, but then repeated it louder: "Helen? Are you at home?" He frowned. _What a silly question to ask_...

He turned left to an open door which led to a study room. There too the lights were on, but everything was quiet, the laptop turned off, nothing unusual.

"Giles?" He heard Willow calling, turned around and stepped back into the anteroom to follow her and Xander to the familiar living room on the right side of the house.

Willow stood at the edge of the coffee-table pointing at the floor. Giles came closer and crouched down. There were blood stains on the carpet. Not large, more like a few drops, but it made him freeze. Few inches from the place was even a larger blood stain. Willow and Xander looked at each other in worry. After a moment Giles got up and went out of the room, rushed upstairs where he'd expected Helen's bedroom. Willow and Xander followed him soon. The lights were on almost everywhere but there was no one. They entered the bedroom. There under the window on the right side was a double bed, a bedcover was spread upon it rather carelessly, and a bathrobe laid on it. Left from the door stood an old looking record player, Purcell's _Fairy-Queen_ was in, the record Giles had given her after Christmas was laying on one of the boxes next to it.

He walked slowly over to the other window on the wall opposite the door, where a dressing table stood. At the first sight nothing unusual struck him, yet then his eyes swept away from it towards the bed and the bedside table. A broken vase was laying there on the floor, next to it pieces of broken glass and a photo frame. He almost expected to find other blood stains, but there were none.

_What does this all mean?_ He wondered. The objects must have fallen off the bedside table, only an overturned alarm clock still stood there. The upper drawer was open. Giles hesitated, but then came closer to inspect its content. There was what seemed to be an address-book inside, yet when he browsed it, all there was were blank pages, not a single letter, not one phone number nor a name had been written down. Apart from that there laid a few packages of tissues, one or two bandages, some pain-killing tablets, a book on civil war and a pencil. He was staring at the blank paper of the diary, furrowing his eyebrows, thinking.

"What's this?" He hadn't heard when Willow came over to the side of the bed he was sitting on now. She picked up the photograph, turned it over, then winced slightly at seeing the five persons on it moving. She showed the picture to Giles. It was a coloured photograph, there was a couple sitting on a wooden bench, a dark haired man with dark, almost black eyes that Giles had seen live only couple of days ago. The man was smiling at the spectator, even laughing heartily. On his lap a little blond girl, she could have been three or four years old, with two pigtails, dressed in a short lime dress, smiling widely and now and then exchanging mischievous glances with an older boy, probably her brother, who again was sitting on the knees of a woman, who unmistakably had to be Helen's mother, for the resemblance, except for the eyes, was startling. She wasn't mostly looking into the camera, her eyes were skipping from her daughter to her son, she had a tired expression on her face, so very much alike that one Giles had seen on Helen couple of times, but she was still beaming, smiling at the children, talking to them or even teasing and tickling them as if she wanted to get out of them what kind of mischief they indeed had plotted. Behind the bench, leaning onto it stood another boy, a little older, perhaps of ten or twelve years. He seemed to be entirely caught up in something else. Ignoring his parents and siblings he was turned sideways to them, watching something in front of him, behind the bench. Only at a better look one could see that in his right hand the boy was holding a wand and would sway it every few seconds, then completely fascinated and with an amazed gaze one would only find on the face of a curious child he watched the colourful sparkles emerging from it.

After a while Giles put the picture on the bedside table, then collected the pieces of glass from the ground, while Willow picked the bits of the vase and put them carefully on the dressing table.

"I've checked now everywhere else, she's not here." They both turned around at Xander standing in the door. Willow threw Giles a worried look. "And she doesn't seem to have moved out, I've looked in her wardrobes, in bathroom, everything's there."

"What do you think happened here, Giles?" Willow asked him, as he kept staring at the photograph, frowning, his hand rubbing his forehead, then wondering off to his mouth, thoughtfully stroking his lips. It was clear that something was wrong.

"I-uh... really don't know, Willow. It's hard to tell. The only thing that's obvious is that-uh... something out-uh... of the ordinary took place here."

"What about the blood – in the living room?" Xander asked. Giles stood up.

"It's not fresh. I'm guessing it's been a few days since it got there."

"But Snyder said he talked to her this morning on the phone." Willow said and Giles turned back her.

"So, that would mean that whatever happened here, it couldn't have been too bad." Xander replied, trying to perk them up a little. "I mean, she obviously recovered all right, when she's going to be back tomorrow."

Giles tried to smile. "Yes, I guess you're right... I just-uh... wish she was here." He said looking around himself, clueless. True, the blood on the carpet downstairs could have come from one of her nosebleeds, or not even that, perhaps some small accident occurred as they aren't unusual at home. And the broken vase and the photograph – they could have just been smashed down – accidentally. Giles threw one last look at the bed. But why hasn't she picked them up? She must have seen them on the floor, it was on the same side of the bed where also the bathrobe laid, so she must have noticed it when she'd put the robe down... He was worried, and he felt that only a look at her standing in front of him, sound and well off, could drive away his concerns. _Where was she?_ It seemed impossible to tell when she'd left and how long she's been out. He made a step towards the door.

"Why is the phone cable cut off?" Willow asked suddenly and Giles came over to the other bedside table where a phone and a lamp were. His eyes followed the cable of the phone and indeed soon he too saw its loose end. But when he took a closer look, he realized that it had not been cut, it rather appeared as if someone had burned it through. Giles felt his stomach move but it wasn't the genial hop it did every time he saw Helen, now it felt very unpleasant, as if the walls of his body around it wanted to narrow it and to crash it.

"This is not good." Willow said in a high voice.

Before Giles could reply, they all got frightened by an odd sound. It wasn't loud, yet echoing in the silence of the house it gave them quite a scare, also as it seemed to have emerged from somewhere in the bedroom. They kept looking around themselves, their eyes widened, hearts beating fast, but there was still no one to be seen. Giles got up to his feet again. _It was like a little cracking noise, as if someone stepped on a broken glass_... He walked slowly and as quiet as he could manage back to the spot on the other side of the bed, where just a few minutes ago he and Willow collected the broken pieces. He knelt down and indeed discovered that one splitter of the frame glass that they must have overlooked got cracked into thousands tiny, powdery glass spots.

"What was that?" Xander screamed, jumping away from the door into the corridor.

"You felt it too?" Willow squeaked, leaning with her back onto the wall, her expression even more scared.

Giles looked at them alarmed. "What is it?" He stood up. For a moment they both looked too appalled to speak. "Did you see something?"

"No," Willow finally answered, staring somewhere into the room. She wouldn't say more so Giles turned at Xander who looked pale as if he had seen a ghost.

"It was... like a draft or something, as if someone... _ran_... past me..." He said.

"Like a breeze, a-a draft of air..." Willow added nodding, when she composed herself a little.

Giles was frowning, looking from one to another, then stepped out into the corridor, looking around. "Helen? Is that you? Are you here?"

"You-you think she's invisible?" Willow asked.

Giles shook his head frowning. He was sure that if wanted Helen could make herself unseen, she was a witch after all. But what reason would she have to do that?

"I think we should leave." Xander said shooting anxious glances towards the stairs. Giles nodded slowly.

"But-but what are we going to do – about...?" She looked down at the phone cable, then pointed with her spread arms around the room, meaning all the strange ominous hints they have found so far.

"Maybe we should call the police." Xander said, nodding nervously.

"No. We don't know what is going on, there is no explicit evidence of any crime... besides I wouldn't want to involve them, apart from the fact that most of the times they're not even helpful I-I don't-uh want to attract their attention."

"Right." Willow understood. "Then let's get out of here. She's supposed to be back tomorrow, I'm sure she'll explain."

Giles nodded, then motioned them to leave. They left the place the way they had found it. Giles gave the house one last helpless look, then got in his car and drove them all home.

On his way home it occurred to him, and again made him wonder a little, that he never felt concerned in this way about anyone before, apart from Buffy perhaps, but that was different... He wasn't sure whether he would be able to sleep at all, he was too worried and didn't even know what about exactly. Yet the strains of the whole week with the Order of Taraka, the whole Du Lac affair and most of all the sleepless research nights finally made their impact on him when long after midnight he fell into a sleep, that was neither satisfying nor quiet. He kept dreaming strange things about the Highgate cemetery, about Angel, about his father, about Helen, Spike and Drusilla, so that when he woke up in the morning to the horrible sound of his alarm clock he didn't feel rested nor better than before.

On his way to the school he made a detour over Helen's house to see whether she had returned in the meantime. He found the door closed – as they had left it the previous night. He rang the bell, once, twice... then once more, but the house remained silent, he could see that the lights were still on in every room. He drove off, hoping that she'd be at school.

"Hi, Giles." Buffy greeted him in the corridors as he was hurrying towards the history's classroom. He turned back at her, looking distracted.

"Buffy." He murmured, slowed down a little, but kept walking.

Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Angel's fine, by the way. Looks like he'll be fully recovered in a few days."

"Mhm." He nodded absentmindedly, looking at the faces of the people that were passing them, expecting to see the one.

"Oh, and I said goodbye to your favourite Slayer." She said. A reaction of Giles came unusually late, only after few seconds he turned his face to Buffy, frowning. "Sorry, what did you say?"

Now Buffy looked irritated. "Kendra? Remember? The handbook-slayer? _The Writings of Dorkius ha-ha-ha, all the footnotes, volume six_?" She said mocking.

Finally the reaction she expected followed as Giles glared at her disapprovingly. "She's-uh... different than you..." He scratched his head nervously, not sure what to add. "Her-her watcher obviously-uh... tried a different approach with her, other-uh... methods... a-and you must admit that she was very helpful."

Buffy now smiled at him amused. "It's ok. I actually kinda liked her too."

"And Buffy," he now made a halt, turning at her, "– you'll never hear me saying this again and I ask you not to repeat this to anyone – I-uh," he cleared his throat, then said quietly and quickly: "wouldn't exchange you for any other slayer."

Now Buffy looked a little taken aback, then smiled at him bashfully. "Thanks."

"Not that I could, if I wanted to." He added and shrugged. Buffy gave him a nasty, but not too earnest glare, then they moved again.

"So, what's with the hurry, Giles?"

"Hm?" He raised his head again, noticing that the crowds in the corridors have become less, obviously the first period had begun.

"Oh sheesh!" Buffy looked at the large clock on one of the walls, but then waved her hand carelessly. "Well, it's only chem class..." Then she turned back at him. "So? What's wrong? You seem troubled."

"Uh-I was on my way to Ms. McGregor's office. We-uh... we were at her house yesterday evening, with Willow and Xander, there-uh... there were a few... odd things. She wasn't at home... I-uh..." He turned red again. "We-we were worried, I wanted to see now whether she's back."

"She is. I saw her, just a couple of minutes ago, she rushed past me."

Giles raised his eyebrows. "She did? That's-uh... good. I should talk to her." He began walking again. "I'll-uh... see you later. We should train after your classes."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Are you sure you don't want another Slayer?"

Giles was about to say something serious, when they heard the voice of principal Snyder running down some students that were late for their classes, and Buffy's eyes widened in fear, she shook her head to tell Giles that they'll talk later, then hurried in the opposite direction.

When Giles walked past Snyder, the principal just gave him one of his notorious scowls then continued in his way. Giles reached the door of Helen's classroom and the look on the schedule told him that she was just now having a double period with the sophomores, he had to wait. Returning to his office he thought – _she's here at least, so everything's fine_. Yet he didn't feel the relief he had been expecting. He needed to see her for himself to be sure.

He somehow managed to pass the time with putting the library back in order, and when finally the break after the second period came, he was already stepping outside of Helen's classroom. Then the door opened at last and the students began to storm out. He waited yet a few moments longer until the last ones left, then entered.

Helen was sitting at her desk, her elbows upon it, her hands rubbing her temples. He knocked at the opened door and saw her wince at the noise before she raised her head at him. Giles froze a little, she was almost as pale as the walls in the room, all color disappeared from her face, only a tiny pink scar was visible on her forehead. The black clothes she was wearing just underlined the unhealthy appearance.

"Hello." She said, exhaling relieved.

"You look terrible." Giles said, unable to hide his concerns and came closer.

Helen raised her brows. "Eh-thank you, I-eh... I've always hoped you'd say that to me one day." She replied in a quiet, half-earnest tone.

Giles closed his eyes, embarrassed. "I'm sorry."

Helen waved her hand that it was ok. "It's fine, I know it's not my best day." She smiled at him weakly.

Giles came now to her desk and leant onto it. "Is-uh... is everything alright? I've been wanting to talk to you, but couldn't reach you... We were at your house yesterday night, there was so much going on in the past few days that I-"

"What?" She interrupted him and when he looked at her – he wouldn't have believed it possible before – yet her face went even one shade paler than it had been. "What did you say?" She looked frightened now.

"It was a very busy week, we had to deal with Spike and Drusilla and some assassins-"

"You were at my house?" She asked, with fear in her eyes.

"Yes," Giles replied confused. "We were looking for you-"

"Who's we?"

"Uh-... Xander and Willow, and I-"

"Oh no," she murmured and got up. "Are they alright? Are they...?" She was about to

go to the door, when Giles stopped her putting his hand on her shoulders. Immediately she collapsed back into her chair.

"What's the matter?" He asked her now in his velvety tone.

She took a deep breath, staring at her hands for a moment, then rubbed her forehead again, looking helpless and somehow agitated at the same time, as if resignation and panic were fighting each other inside of her, so Giles knelt down in front of her, to look into her face. If anyone came in now, it would have appeared very strange.

"Tell me." He said, placing his hand gently on her knee and immediately her heart jumped up.

"Are Willow and Xander- have you seen them today? Are they alright?" She asked urgently.

"Yes." He replied reassuringly. "I saw them briefly. Why shouldn't they be alright?" He then asked quietly in a tone as if trying to calm down a child that was having silly, causeless worries.

Helen looked him in the eyes and he sensed that she was about to say something terrible and it squeezed his stomach again. She took another breath. "I-eh... there is...-eh..."

He gave her an encouraging look. She gulped.

"Remember Rodolphus Lestrange?"

Giles frowned, then nodded, his thoughts began to wander back, but before he could come to the conclusion, she spoke: "He's here."

He looked at her, she saw the shock in his eyes and was glad that he didn't look at her in disbelief or tried to play it down with meaningless assurances of not to worry. Nor did he burst into the other extreme which would be panicking or exclaiming how horrifying it all was. He understood what this news meant. Or at least as far as he could, for it was clear to her that as a non-wizard Giles might not yet comprehend all the danger Rodolphus represented, all the ways in which he was able to hurt them. But he would know that it wasn't an apocalypse either.

"What happened?" He asked after a moment, brushing gently with his left hand over the small scar on her forehead.

She began to tell him about the events of the past week. "On Sunday evening, when you brought me home, he'd been waiting... in the living room. I-eh... I was entirely... well, you can imagine... surprised is not quite the word... I managed to disapparate however..."

_Helen had apparated on the outskirts of Sunnydale. It was dark around her, to her left there seemed to be a forest, to her right, in the distance, were the lights of the town. She remembered the rule Márkos had taught her during her auror-apprenticeship – to apparate at least twice when you've been attacked. And so she did. For the second time she chose a playground somewhere in town, not the best location, but as it was very late and way after nightfall, there were no children here, no one, whom she'd put in danger if Rodolphus should have succeeded in following her. She already felt the effects of her magic, her circulation getting messy. What to do now? To find a more or less safe place to stay, to pull herself together again, to take care of the wounds, to think about what should be done next. She couldn't return home, that was sure... She recalled a hotel in the centre of Sunnydale, didn't hesitate much longer and apparated in a side street to it, then walked in. A young woman at the reception greeted her happily. _

"_Good evening, ma'am. What can I do for you?"_

_Helen walked towards the counter, feeling dizzier with every step. "I-ah... I'd like a room, for a-a week." _

"_Sure." The woman replied, giving her a curious look, then turning to her computer. "We have a free room on the third floor, with the view to the street-"_

"_That'll be fine." Helen said, then the woman took her look from the screen back at her. Her expression became more serious now, the smile faded away._

"_A-are you alright, ma'am? Your nose..."_

"_I'm fine, thank you." Helen covered her nose with one hand._

"_Are you sure?" She looked down at Helen's pants and saw the blood soaking through it on several spots. "What happened to you? Perhaps I should call an ambulance-"_

"_Ndo, really, I'd just like to go to the roomb ndow." Helen said, insisting._

_The woman was getting more and more nervous. "Or perhaps even the police..."_

_Now Helen closed her eyes, thinking, _Oh, don't make me do this!_ But as the woman seized the phone, she took out her wand and pointed it at the receptionist, murmuring "_Imperio!_". The woman's gaze got blank for a moment, then she put the phone down, raised her head at Helen and smiled in the same way she did when Helen first entered. Helen lowered her wand a little._

"_It's the room 311, on the third floor, you can take the lift on the right side," she pointed towards the door of the lift, "but there is also a staircase over there." _

"_Thank you," Helen said, then gave the woman an impatient look._

"_Oh, sorry, here's your key-card." She took a card from her desk and handed it to Helen._

"_Thanks." Helen then turned away and went to the lift. A minute later she was standing at her door. She looked around herself to make sure no one was near, cast a few protection spells around her room, then finally entered. In front of the mirror in the large bathroom she was inspecting her wounds now, but the surroundings were already beginning to swing. "_Episkey!_" She just manage to close the small cut on her forehead, when she almost lost her balance. Everything else would have to wait. She crawled to the bedroom, threw herself into the covers and fell into an uneasy sleep._

"And you've been there all the time? During the whole week, in that hotel?" Giles asked her.

"Not quite. On the next day I-eh... I've tried to return to my house, I needed some things, a potion and-eh... but he was still there, he had put a disillusionment charm on himself so that I couldn't see him as he attacked me and then I disapparated immediately, but unfortunately... he was holding me." She was talking fast and fevered.

Giles didn't understand.

"He was holding my arm when I apparated at the hotel, hence he knew where I was staying so I had to apparate yet again, twice, to get rid of him and then the whole get-me-a-hotel-room story began anew..."

_Helen was thinking hard what would be the best thing to do. She had no access to her fireplace, from which she could have contacted George or anyone. She couldn't apparate into any wizarding location in a reasonable time – given her state, it would take long and she didn't like the idea leaving a vicious murderer like Rodolphus behind in Sunnydale in the meantime. She'd have to take care of him by herself. _I can do it, I just need to be prepared. He's not stronger nor better than I once was_... Was, _that's exactly the word, dear_, her inner voice said wisely. If only she could let someone know... Then she remembered. Hermione gave her a phone number to her and Ron's new place in London at Christmas, she had it on a small piece of paper somewhere... _

"So on Tuesday I placed a disillusionment charm upon myself and was about to apparate into my bedroom, hoping that if he still was there, he at least would be lurking somewhere else in the house... All I needed were a few moments to retrieve that bloody note with that number." Helen said, shaking angrily. "And then such a stupid thing! I-eh... I made a slight mistake at the apparition and I bumped into my bedside table as I apparated, throwing over couple of things, he must have heard..."

_Rodolphus didn't even bother to make himself invisible this time. With a loud pop he apparated in front her, her disillusionment charm hadn't been strong enough as she realized to her horror, she was very much there, visible in flesh and blood. _

_For a moment they just stared at each other before Helen realized what he was doing. "_Occlumens!_" She whispered. _

"_Aaaww, no, no, no, Helen! You just wanted to call your friends? How pathetic, a mudblood like Granger, oh, what a pity Bella couldn't finish what she had started torturing that filthy-" _

"Sectums_-"_

"Frange_!"_

_She had to hand it to him, his reflexes were indeed flawless – he's been renowned for being extremely fast and adroit – he had pointed his wand at her right arm and she heard an unpleasant crack, then immediately felt the tormenting pain in her forearm as the bone got fractured. _

"I disappeared again." She said to Giles, almost ashamed. "You can't imagine how frustrating... how small I felt... how..." She said in a shaky voice. Giles touched her right forearm in surprise, then stroked over it. "It's healed, I managed to take the Skele-Gro the day before." She said blushing and getting goose bumps at the touch.

"Oh." Giles replied thoughtfully, caressing the sleeve of her blouse. "What?"

"It's a potion, it grows your bones when they're-eh... not there, or were hurt, or otherwise damaged."

"Oh."

"But it took long."

Giles could only imagine what the impact of all the magic she'd been doing – he stopped counting all the apparations she mentioned – would have had on her, after all he'd never seen her looking this awful. Obviously his face wasn't concealing his thoughts quite successfully, because she smiled sadly, saying: "I've lived through worse, believe me."

"Right... But where were you yesterday then?"

"I-eh... well, I could barely move after all that, but-eh... on Wednesday I went to the Ethan's place, you remember, the costume shop."

Giles face hardened. "So it _was_ him who told this Lestrange."

Helen shook her head, unsure. "I don't know. Maybe. He didn't say how... Anyway I went there, I wanted to see if..., but it was empty, it didn't look like anyone's been there in a while."

Giles suddenly looked at her alarmed. "But what about the school?"

She didn't get the chance to understand his question when principal Snyder entered the classroom. "That's a very good point, Mr. Giles, in fact that's exactly what I want to talk about with Ms. McGregor _right now_." He said in a voice that wasn't even attempting to hide his annoyance and dislike. "Would you mind?" He addressed Giles who glared at him, but then got up. He bowed down to whisper into Helen's ear:

"Curse him."

"I might." She replied quietly as Giles was about to leave.

"I heard that," Snyder snapped, glaring at her nastily, then closed the door behind Giles.

After the highly non-amusing talk with the principal, in which he threatened that he might finally fulfil her wish from last year and fire her if she wouldn't keep her absences at a reasonable (to him it meant zero) amount, she still had to teach four classes. At least she was relieved to see that Xander and Willow came – well off – to their class as well, she even forgave Xander for not having written the homework essay.

After the last period she walked to the library and ran into the three Scoobies in front of its swing-door.

"So, what's up?" Buffy asked when they all entered.

Giles just hung up the phone and walked over towards them. "I've tried to call Robson. I thought he might know someone who could help but he's not there. I-uh... I suppose I could-uh... contact the council..."

"No, don't do that." Helen said shaking her head. "They don't know that you and I know... when we're not supposed to know..."

Buffy raised her brows amused. "Ok, now I feel excluded. What is it that you guys know?"

They both looked at the three as if they'd only noticed now that they were there, listening.

Giles gave Helen a short look, then began to explain, taking off and cleaning his glasses.

"It seems that-uh... a dark-uh... wizard, Rodolphus Lestrange, came here."

"Lestrange?" Willow asked. "Wasn't he the husband of this witch you defeated in that Battle?"

Once again Helen was perplexed by the knowledge and the memory of the red haired girl, Giles had told her that the three of them had seen the infamous copy of the Daily Prophet and its report on the Battle of Hogwarts. She nodded.

"Here... as in the good old US of A? Here ... in California? Entertaining Hollywood with some nice jinxes and tricks, 'ey?" Xander asked light-heartedly. Giles' look though wiped his grin away.

"Here – as in Sunnydale."

"Hm," Xander shrugged. "Ok. And...he's here...?"

"To get his copy of _Helen goes to Hollywood_ signed, Xander," Helen said impatiently.

"You wrote that?" Xander asked wondering, and all four of them rolled their eyes.

Helen then gave them a shortened version of what she already told Giles, she also mentioned their previous suspicion that maybe Ethan Rayne was the one who called Rodolphus here. For a while everyone was just reflecting upon the news, then Giles asked her tentatively: "What do you want to do?"

Buffy jumped into his question: "I think that's pretty clear. I say we find this wizardy-dude, then give him a proper welcome, then slay him." Helen gave her a shocked look, so Buffy asked innocently. "We don't? Slay him?"

"No, I'd rather do it another-eh... way, he'd be put to justice."

Buffy exchanged uncomprehending look with Xander. "How?"

"Well, he needs to be disarmed, that is deprived of his wand, then I would contact someone from the Ministry and... they'd then take care of him... He'd get a trial, then probably be placed in Azkaban."

"Aztec-what?"

"Azkaban!" Willow and Giles said in a unison and Helen looked at them amused and impressed. "It's the prison for bad wizards." Willow added.

"But can you fight him?" Giles asked.

Helen blushed. "I can, I think. I know it didn't look like it the past few days. I wasn't prepared, he took me by surprise, my reactions weren't... good." Giles nodded. "But," she continued insisting: "I could do it, all it takes is a clear mind and one well aimed spell in a moment of surprise... To get that last one however might be a problem."

"Why?" Xander asked.

"Well, I don't know where he is, to begin with. He was at my house on Wednesday, using the disillusionment charm to be invisible, he thought I might return again..."

"Invisible?" Willow asked, then turned in horror at Giles and Xander. "Then it could have been him, Xander, yesterday night, when he was invisible, he was in the room, and he made the noise, you know, the cracking of the glass, he might have stepped on a splitter and we heard it, then felt the draught of air as he ran out and passed us!"

Giles and Helen exchanged alarmed looks. "Then he knows you now." She got up. "I better place some protection spells on your houses as well, just in case... I don't suppose he'd really go after you, but we shouldn't take any chances."

"Protection spells?"

"Yes, I already did the school this morning, merely some basic charms, they should do for the time being, I hope."

"Ok," Buffy interrupted them in a commanding, strategic tone. "Here's the plan. You go do the protection-stuff, we go have a little look around, see whether we can find out where your _friend_ is staying, or hiding. Someone like him must have attracted some attention somewhere."

Helen gave her a hesitant look. "Alright. I need one of you to come along." She looked at Xander and Willow. "I don't know where either of you live."

Buffy answered for them: "Right, Xander, Willow, you go with her, Giles and me-"

"You can do my apartment later." Giles said, noticing Helen's worried expression.

"Hm? Oh, it's not that, I already did your apartment earlier this week-"

"You did? When?" He asked astonished.

"Eh-... Monday morning, when you weren't there... I assumed, because of Ethan-eh it occurred to me that Rodolphus might go to your place."

Then Giles, wondering, remembered the short moment when he came home on Monday evening, smelling the strangely unfamiliarly-familiar vague fragrance in his living room... something he knew but something that didn't belong there...

"Buffy," she turned at Buffy now, her voice serious, "I should warn you, you cannot be careful enough."

Buffy nodded, her eyes saying not to worry.

"Please, understand this: He's not a vampire or a demon. If he wanted to, he could kill you in an instance and from a distance of several yards and you wouldn't even know what he's doing before you fell dead on the ground."

Buffy's face turned more earnest now, but she didn't look scared, rather than determined. "Don't worry." She said. "So, I say we all go now, let's meet back here later." She turned at her watcher. "Common, Giles, I know just a place where to begin with our search."

"You do?" Giles raised his brows, then gave Helen one last encouraging smile before they left.

"So, what place did you have in mind?" Giles asked Buffy when they came out of the school and Buffy began to walk in the direction of one of the Sunnydale's worse corners.

"You'll see. I've already been there couple of times this week, I might qualify as a regular guest there I suppose..." She replied.

About half an hour later they both descended the stairs to a dubiously looking bar in a basement. The sign above the door said "Willy's". When they entered, Giles noticed the bartender close his eyes painfully and move his lips into a soundless but clearly discernible "_please not her again_" as he spotted Buffy. He was a short dark-haired, dark-eyed nervous looking man. Buffy walked over to the counter.

"So, Giles, here, meet Willy."

Giles grinned uncomfortably, scanning the other few guests in the bar. "Pleasure."

Willy leant over the counter and whispered. "Look, I'm sorry about last time, but – it did end up all well for you, and for Angel, didn't it?... Now, you can't just keep coming here like that."

"Why not?"

"If the rumour gets spread that the Slayer comes here regularly-"

Buffy silenced him with a single glare. "Rufflufus Strange – ever heard of him?" She asked in a demanding voice.

"N-no, I don't think so- you see that's exactly what I mean – if it gets out that the Slayer comes here asking questions and help-" He began to plead.

"I-it's Rodolphus, Rodolphus Lestrange's the name." Giles said, emphasizing the name and Willy looked at him taken aback once again.

"Hm? No, I'm afraid I don't know that one either."

"Now are you absolutely sure? I'd just hate to have to come back tomorrow and embarrass you in front of your...," Buffy looked around the room, throwing appalled glances at the creatures sitting there, trying not to attract her attention, "... guests."

"I swear."

Buffy glared at him, knowing that his _swears_ didn't mean much as he had proven just the day before.

"What about Ethan Rayne?" Giles asked him, his voice sounded now a little threatening.

"Ethan who? No, sorry, I don't think I know him..." Giles pierced at him through narrowed eyes, after he'd taken off his glasses to clean them. It made Willy uncomfortable. "M-maybe if you could describe him I-I'd remember, what does this Ethan-guy look like?"

"English like him," Buffy said, pointing at Giles, "sleazy like you, about this height, dark eyes, worships chaos, dabbles in dark magicks... does it ring a bell?"

Giles saw in Willy's eyes that it sounded familiar. He squirmed, looking reluctantly from one to the other. Giles felt his pulse getting faster, his patience and calm drifting away, soon he'd grab the dirty little man and make him spit out all he knew...

"Yes... yes, someone like that was here... But it's been long ago."

"How long?"

"Around Christmas. He was here twice, once alone, and then with someone else... a-a man, a tall man, he was wearing a-a black cloak and a hood over his head, I couldn't see his face... he wasn't very friendly I can tell you, he insulted one of the guests and almost started a fight, but then this Ethan took him out. They didn't return after that."

_Christmas_, Giles thought and turned pale. _That was five-six weeks ago_.

"Dou you know where they are now?" Buffy asked unimpressed.

"N-no, ho-how would I? What do you think I am?"

"You mean beside a sleazy disgusting lousy little liar?"

"Now that's really ungrateful-"

"What did they talk about? Did you hear anything? Did they meet anyone else?" Giles interrupted.

"No!" Willy replied pleading that they would leave at last, throwing stolen glances towards his worried guests.

"Are you lying to me?" Buffy asked teasing.

"No, I swear, they only had couple of drinks, they-they seemed to be arguing, I think the hood-guy didn't like my place and told the other so..."

"Hm, so he at least seems to have a good taste." Buffy said, shrugging. "Ok, Giles, I don't think we're gonna get more here. Let's go." She turned one more time at Willy, saying sweetly: "If I find out that you were lying to us or keeping some information from us-"

"I wasn't, I swear."

They left.

"What now?" Buffy asked outside.

"I-uh... I don't know. Helen said she's been to Ethan's place already but I'd still like to go there and look around."

"Ok. You know what? Let's split. You go to Ethan's, I'll go to Angel's and ask him, he could have heard something. Then I'll stop by at her house." Giles wanted to protest, he found it too dangerous. "I'll be careful, and he doesn't know me, right? Now what's the address?"

Giles explained the way to her.

"Right, we'll meet at the library." And off she was.

"Right."

Willow and Xander on their part accompanied Helen to their houses and she put some protection spells there that were supposed to shield their homes from any attacks of dark magic. Afterwards they returned back to the library. It didn't take a lot of time, it was just late afternoon. Buffy and Giles haven't returned yet from their rounds, so the three of them sat down around the main table and waited. Helen began to regret that she let Giles and Buffy go on their own. She felt bad enough that they all got involved in it now, for putting them in danger. To distract her Willow and Xander told her about the events revolving around the Du Lac ritual and how they defeated Spike and Drusilla and got rid of the Order of Taraka.

"So they're dead then, Spike and Drusilla?"

"Seems so." Willow answered. "They went down with the church."

"And the assassins? Won't they be coming again then?"

"No, Giles says no, so – I choose to take his word for it." Xander said. "I hope he's right, I really had enough of bug-people for a lifetime...uuurhgh." He shivered.

"Bug-people?" Helen asked.

"Yes, oh, we left out the most interesting part of the story!" Xander said and he began to tell his and Cordelia's adventures with the non-human member of the Order of Taraka. On occasions he would pause – for example when he was telling how he and Cordelia were hiding in the basement of Buffy's house – and blush and Willow gave him an odd and questioning look.

He was just describing how they fought the bugs with glue and stomping, when a sound of a loud pop made them flinch.

Helen froze and felt her heart jump up to her throat and back. Rodolpus Lestrange, smirking and smiling unpleasantly, stood right there, only a few metres in front of them, in the middle of the library with his wand in his hand pointing it at her. "Hello."

She reached for her wand, but was too late.

"_Crucio!_" She heard him say and fell down immediately, the agonizing needly stitches spreading through her whole body. She heard Xander get up, a sound like he must have overthrown a chair, then his approaching running footsteps, then suddenly the stitches stopped and when she heard another "_Crucio_", the expected pain didn't occur again. Instead she turned around at Xander's scream and saw the boy now wincing on the floor. It was Willow now who with tears in her eyes ran towards her best friend. Shocked Helen looked at Rodolphus and his gleeful expression made her want to vomit.

She took out her wand. "_Protego._" To her horror the wand only gave off blue sparks and nothing happened. Once more she felt panic coming up. Rodolphus was laughing. _Keep calm, try something else_.

She turned around, stepped away a little, pointed her wand in the air between her and Xander and Willow, then spoke: "_Parietem._" A semi-loud rattle could be heard, but for a second she still wasn't sure whether the spell had worked. Then she looked down at Xander and saw him exhale and his muscles ease. Willow was kneeling down above him, crying.

"Now that was a clever thing to do." Rodolphus spoke slowly from behind her, he sounded amused, admiring, pretended to be impressed, but Helen also heard just a very slight touch of anger. She turned around at him. "Not that I couldn't crash your petty wall if I wanted to, but... you're right, they were just distracting us anyway."

"How did you find me?" She asked him, hoping to get a little time to think.

He laughed. "Oh, it seems the world is far smaller than we'd have thought. We have some acquaintance in common, would you believe it?"

"Ethan Rayne." Helen said, it wasn't a question, more a statement. "So why did you wait so long to come and kill me then?"

He raised his eyebrows and grinned as if she had asked something indecent.

"Oh, I don't want to kill you, Helen, I'm sorry, you thought that? I apologize if I gave you that impression... No, I don't. Or at least not just yet." He smiled widely, an almost maniac look appeared in his eyes. "I want to make you scream, as she screamed, I want you to suffer as Bella suffered at your hands."

"She didn't suffer. Not the way she should have. She was dead in an instance... a courtesy of mine..."

"_Sectumsempra!_" Rodolphus shouted angrily. Helen let out a scream this time as she went to her knees and felt the cut wounds from last Sunday opening again, particularly a deep one on her left thigh hurt now with a burning pain, and then the blood soaking her skirt.

"_Averto_," she murmured, pointing at Rodolphus. The sight of the blue sparkles emerging from her wand almost made her cry of the frustration.

"Ah, Helen, you're still not getting it." He shook his head like reprehending a bad child.

She got up again, looked him deeply in the eyes and for a short moment he seemed puzzled by the stare. "_Sectumsempra!_" She used his short hesitation.

"Aah!" He cried out, his left hand grasped his right arm where now a deep cut appeared. "So, you _can_ do hard stuff!"

"What would your master say if he saw you socializing with muggles like Ethan? A betrayal of his ideas like that?" She asked him. She wanted to distract him with a talk, maybe dilute his attention and his reflexes.

"You see I'm not the one who is betraying the wizarding world here. It's you. You have killed pureblood wizards. Ethan... he has proven useful on occasions. For now I can need him. Later... well."

It hit her only now how very much this thinking was like Voldemorts. What Ethan meant to Rodolphus – that was what Bellatrix and what Rodolphus, what every single one of them, the Death Eaters, meant to Voldemort – that was nothing. They weren't persons, they were things, tools to be used, then eventually – when they'd become inconvenient or not as efficient as before – they'd be removed, disposed of.

"I see." She said, not hiding her disgust.

"Oh, come on, Helen, what does a filthy muggle mean to anyone? Surely you cannot compare him with someone like Bella." Then Rodolphus' expression changed. He wasn't smiling, nor grinning anymore. He looked menacing, his eyes forbidding. "You killed her, spilt her blood when it was the purest." He said through pressed teeth.

Helen's heart was beating so fast that one wouldn't be able to distinguish its single beats. It sounded like one loud deep drone in her head. "It didn't look any different to me than the blood of the muggles you both used to kill." She saw fury in his eyes.

"_Crucio!_" He still was too fast for her to react. She fell facing the ground, the pain was unbearable, she was breathing heavily. She managed to turn her face a little and saw Willow and Xander standing behind the invisible wall she had created in the middle of the library. Their voices were being damped due to it, Xander was pounding against it what looked like hammering in the air, he was shouting something but she couldn't distinguish the words. Willow stood helpless next to him, thinking, looking around, then threw a chair against the wall only to see it break.

The wall would remain intact at least, a faint yet satisfied smile appeared on Helen's face before a terrible pain in her head made her close her eyes again, and then all went dark.

_Thank you for staying with me this far, please review, comment, nag, I'm curious to know what you think and how you find it :)_

_Next chapter called "Helen's story" is already in progress._


	20. Chapter 20: Helen's story I

Chapter 20

Helen's story

_AN: The fight goes on... Enjoy!_

Like coming from somewhere far away Helen could perceive a voice talking at her in an arrogant, impatient way. She had her eyes closed and could only little by little feel the different parts of her body, realizing that she was lying on a hard, cold, stony ground of the library floor.

"I didn't come to watch you sleep, Miss Thornton. Wake up, get up... _Aquam_!"

A mighty splash of water hit her face, it actually felt good. She licked her lips, then tried to open her eyes.

"I said get up! _Imperio!_" Rodolphus said angrily and all of a sudden an invisible force pushed her up to her feet, although her legs were fighting against it. She sensed a terrible burning pain in her left thigh.

"That's better. Now – _crucio_!" He yelled, all the hatred he was filled with put into that one word. Again she fell, the pain was indescribable. _It will be over, it will be over, it will stop, in a few moments..._ Her consciousness was about to drift away again, when he broke off the spell and said instead. "_Frange!_" The unpleasant crack told her that her right arm got fractured. Again.

"_Imperio_! Get up!" She didn't know how or who pulled her up to her feet which seemed to be refusing to stand.

"What... do you want?" She asked him panting.

For a moment a trace of confusion flashed by his face at the question, then he began to grin. "I told you. I came to torture you... I was hoping you'd get it by now."

"No. What..." Her legs were about to give up and she fell onto her knees.

"Oh, no, no, you'll stand up while we're talking." He pointed her wand at her and again she felt something pulling her up with a rough force.

"What is it... that you want to do... when you're done... with me? What is your life... supposed to be like? Aren't you tired of... doing _this_?"

He raised his brows. "No, imagine I'm not. I could never get tired of _doing this_ – _crucio_!"

It hurt, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream. "I-eh... I've been through worse, you know..." She whispered heavily when he made her get up again.

"Have you now?" He asked amused.

"Yes-eh, but I don't expect someone like you could possibly... comprehend. There... there are things more unbearable than a dastard cruciatus-curse... things far worse than death... that's what you people never understood... There is-eh... other pain that goes beyond _anything_ that you could possibly expose me to." She said with a slight sign of provocation and challenge in her voice. "Pain that can't be caused by any cut or any wound _you_ would create with your wand, Rodolphus."

"Yees, yeees, you, Dumbledore, the Thorntons, even the Malfoys... you were always the ones with the big words." He replied, pretending to be entirely unimpressed. "Not like me, not like us, Bella and me, we actually _did_ things, instead of talking, you know?"

"Well, that was rather because people like you have _nothing_ to say." She said quietly.

"_Cruc_-"

"_Sectumsempra_!" She did it, finally she had him distracted enough, she thought. The fury was clouding his reflexes. He fell on his knees, blood was storming from his nose and a few cuts appeared on his chest. She wanted to take further advantage of it and disarm him: "_Expe_-"

"_Bracchium seco_!" A sharp pain overcame her, as if someone had cut with a saw through the whole length of her right forearm. Without delay she felt her sleeve getting soaked with blood. With a broken bone and a deep cut she could now hardly hold her wand, the hand was shaking, but before she could switch to her left, Rodolphus repeated the spell aiming on it. Her fingers let the wooden stick – her only possibility to fight his attacks – slip and fall somewhere on the floor.

Willow and Xander kept hitting the invisible wall, but it was solid, nothing they tried would crash it. The phone was on the other side of the wall and the one in Giles' office seemed to be out of order. They tried the back entrance as well, but the heavy metal door was locked and there was no chance that they could break it open. And so they were desperately and helplessly watching the two wizards fighting each other, the one having a mad wide grin over his face, shooting what looked like one spell after another, producing colourful flashes with every new charm, the other getting weaker and more hurt every time it hit her.

In front of the school Buffy ran into Giles, who too was on his way to the library. He seemed deepened in thoughts. "Hey, so? Have you found out anything interesting?"

Giles winced, she had startled him. "Oh," he exhaled. "Buffy... No, no, I can't say I have. Nothing-uh... useful anyway. The store was empty like Helen said. I asked around at a few neighbours' whether they knew anything about Ethan, but apart from complaining about him still keeping the store and not taking care of it, they-uh didn't know where he was staying... the last time anyone has seen him was around Christmas too."

"Hm." Buffy replied as they entered the school together.

"What about you? How did it go? Did you-uh... have more luck?"

"Not much, Angel knew nothing, but he said he'll have a chat with Willy once he's on his feet again. Oh, and I'm afraid your Ms. McGregor will have to renovate her house... like completely."

Giles frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It looks like a bomb hit it, Giles."

"What? How? We were there yesterday and it all looked... quite proper."

"Right, unless I've been to a wrong house, then that wasn't... proper... Unless you count broken things and exploded fireplaces, smashed pianos, glass splitters everywhere normal... It was all dust, most of the furniture wasn't in one piece anymore. Whoever did that must have been on a passionate destruction trip, he put his whole heart into it, I can tell you."

"Well, I think we all know who did that." Giles replied gloomily. "The-uh... question remains – where is he now?" Giles asked as they were approaching the library. Buffy was about to say something, when Giles suddenly slowed down and looked at her, then puzzled he threw a cautious glance towards the library. She shook her head at first but then she too could catch the male voice talking:

"Now, let's see what we can do about convincing you just how much pain I can induce you with my wand, shall we?"

Helen smirked and that seemed to make Rodolphus hesitate for a moment. "Yes? Do you want to say something? Before I might cut out your tongue?"

She looked at him through narrow eyes. "Just do it. I would expect nothing less from a coward like you. Go on!" She said, almost impatiently.

"Oh, now you're spoiling my fun!" He drawled. "But, have it your way... _Crucio!_"

Helen gasped at the new wave of pain that hit her instantly, like knives cutting her hands, her forehead, and then as if a pair of invisible hands began to choke her. Then, just before she thought it would be over soon, he broke it off.

Giles and Buffy kept sidling up towards the swing door. For a moment there was silence, then they heard a weak voice saying:

"D-don't you... think-eh..." Helen was panting, kneeling on the floor, and saw small blood drops covering the space in front of her – once again her nose was bleeding, an unpleasant and at the time highly unwelcome consequence of all the spells she had cast. "Don't you think it's-eh... a bit... repetitive by now? Using the same spell over and over again?... It's..." She coughed and tasted blood in her mouth. "It's really getting boring, you never come up... with anything new." She didn't know exactly why she was doing it, trying to provoke him. Perhaps she felt that she had nothing to lose. _Hell, I'll probably be dead in a moment, so why not piss him off as much as I can, he might do it quicker then_, she thought.

"I'm sorry that you don't find me more entertaining..." He replied, though sounding quite calm still, the rage was accumulating in him, under the surface. "Truth is – that is my favourite spell... That... and this one: _Sectumsempra._"

She closed her eyes, feeling new cuts opening her skin on several spots. It burned.

"And I have Severus to thank for that," Rodolphus said gleefully. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind, it was one of his most ingenious inventions after all, I suppose he'd be understanding, if not proud, don't you think?"

Her face hardened, she was shivering.

"Ops, have I said something wrong? Have I – _hurt_ – you _now_?" He asked in a voice of a madman.

Giles and Buffy have reached the door and pierced into the library through its round windows. They saw a tall dark-haired man in black clothes standing with his back turned to them, he held a wand in his right hand and was pointing it at Helen. Giles' heart sank. She was kneeling on the floor, blood was flowing out of her nose, the contrast between the red of it and the white marble shade of her face made him freeze. He laid a hand at the door, not knowing really what to do, but Buffy pulled him back with a warning look.

"We need a plan. Remember what she said?" She whispered.

Giles ran his hand through his hair helplessly. "A-alright, what-uh... do you propose?"

Buffy was worried now: If Giles was actually asking _her_ for a plan, then he obviously was too agitated, too distressed to think rationally...

"Don't flatter yourself, Rodolphus." Helen replied defiantly. "If that's the idea you and your mob had of hurting people then it is no wonder you and your Master didn't last a single night." The words slipped her mouth without thinking. She didn't care anymore. She wished it would be over and she wouldn't have to listen to him or see his obnoxious grins any longer.

"_Crucio!_" It worked, she had hit the delicate spot, she could feel from the emerging pain in all her limbs that Rodolphus had put his whole passion, his whole rancour into the spell. A scream escaped her lips. Yes, Rodolphus knew his job too well, this time he decided to have a go on all the joints of her body. It was unbearable – as if someone, no, as if several hands were pulling each of her legs and arms into different directions, trying to tear her apart, stretching the joints painfully, as if someone wanted to rupture all of her fingers... She screamed again, louder, in an absurd hope that the noise would drown everything else, would give her a little relief at least...

Then she heard another scream, a familiar voice shouting: "Giles! No!" She tried to turn her head towards the door.

There Giles stormed in, Rodolphus turned around, quickly aimed his wand at him, but at the same time as he said the spell, Buffy had pushed her watcher aside. "_Avada kedavra_!"

Helen closed her eyes. That was it, she thought, in the short fraction of a second her mind teemed with so many thoughts as to how exactly this all could have happened... Then another spell "_Avada kedavra_" sounded, and she thought that now she had brought death upon the both of them, the Slayer and the Watcher, yet something in Rodolphus' voice when he said the curse made her frown.

The next thing she heard was a loud punching noise, then Rodolphus yelled: "Aaaah!" Then another hit, and by the tapping noise that followed Helen could tell that he let his wand fall out of his hand. When she now managed to look up to see what was going on, Buffy just struck him with a final strike into his face. He fell on the ground, Helen heard him grunting, but he wouldn't move.

"What are you? !" He asked Buffy irritated.

Buffy laid a foot on his stomach and put her hands on her hips, looking down at him angrily: "Ex-cuse me? !" She replied indignantly to his question, implying that he was the impertinent one in this room.

Then a face appeared right in front of Helen's, a face the look at which now spread a pleasant wave of warmth through her. She smiled at him, but through all the blood over her nose and mouth Giles couldn't see it. He was looking down at her with so many feelings mixed up: He was glad, relieved that she was alive, terrified and shaken by what he had just seen and heard – the frightening scream of hers was still sounding in his ears – shocked and worried about how she looked now, covered in blood, laying on the floor. Merely the great concern for her kept the other emotion down – the urge to hurt the monstrous man who had inflicted all that upon her.

Only now they noticed the sounds coming from behind the invisible wall, where Xander and Willow kept pounding against it, looking a little eased.

"What the hell-?" Buffy asked staring perplexed at her two friends who seemed to be waving their hands in the air.

"My... my wand," Helen murmured, trying to get up. Giles laid his hand on her shoulder, he looked almost as pale as her. He tried to avoid looking at Rodolphus, for he feared he'd lost his self-control by the sight of the wizard.

"Can you stand up?" He asked. She nodded, then wanted to wipe away the blood from underneath her nose with a sleeve of her blouse, so that Giles would this time see her smiling, but winced at the sharp pain in her forearm.

"Au, yes-yes, I think-eh... if you can just...?" She stretched out her arms.

"Of course." He supported her elbows, then helped her get up. He spotted blood stains on the floor where she was laying just a moment ago and was worried what other wounds she might have. She gasped as he pulled her arm a little stronger. "What is it?"

"My arm... I think it's broken... could you... there," she pointed with the other hand at a spot near the table where her wand had fallen, "could you please-eh... get me my wand?"

He picked the wooden stick and handed it to her. She pointed it at the wall then murmured "_Finite_!", they heard a quiet cracking noise, then the voices of Xander and Willow became loud and clear again and the two ran over towards them.

After the spell Helen immediately felt the new flow of blood pouring from her nose, the library began to swing, as if someone was hauling off the ground from underneath her feet. Giles caught her just in time before she would fall down.

"Thank you," she said, then turned at Xander. "I'm so-so sorry, Xander, I couldn't- are you-ok?"

Xander raised his hand. "Don't worry, I'll live, I'm a-uh... a tough guy." He said, then looked over towards Rodolphus. "But I sure hope he'll never do it again... what about you, he did quite... take you apart..."

Rodolphus laughed madly. "You filthy muggles won't-"

"_Silencio!_" With an impatient wave of her wand Helen silenced him. "First things first... I-eh... I need to get home, my fireplace... I must-"

Giles pulled a chair to them, then pushed Helen down onto it, while Buffy spoke: "I don't think you'll get any cosy fire from there anymore..."

"What?"

They heard Rodolphus smirk.

Giles glared at Buffy. "Buffy was at your house earlier, it seems he," he took a deep breath and once more he suppressed the temptation to stab the man, "he-uh... had destroyed-uh... it."

"Oh." She replied resigned.

"So what are we gonna do with him?" Willow asked.

"Can I kill him?" Buffy asked eagerly.

"No," Helen got up. "I-uh... I must find a way... to-to contact someone... I have a phone number somewhere in my house... I could call Hermione... We should go..." She turned at Giles.

He looked at her unwillingly, she could hardly stand on her feet. "Can't it wait? Perhaps we best-uh... take you to a hospital first. You-you are injured."

She gave him a shocked glance. "What? No!... I-eh... I don't like hospitals." She said in a tone as if saying she didn't like shopping in strip malls. Though her whole body was aching and the cuts were filling her with burning pain, she would be able to tend to them on her own. She had all that was needed, a few potions, a healing salve, a spell or two would do.

"But-" Giles wanted to object further.

"I can take care of it. I just need my purse."

Giles exchanged indecisive looks with Willow, but then grabbed Helen's purse from the table.

"And what again do we do with this dirt?" Buffy asked, pressing her feet into Rodolphus's stomach.

Helen suddenly looked around them alarmed, then spotted the other wand on the floor. "Without his wand he's harmless, he can't do anything... As you saw, he's not very strong, physically."

"Let's-uh... put him in the cage until then." Giles said and Buffy dragged Rodolphus into the cage and emptied the cupboards where Giles kept his weapons and put them into his office.

"Right, we can watch him until then," Buffy said. "You go now."

Giles walked over to Helen and put an arm around her waist to support her. Though she could walk on her own, she seemed too weak.

When they were passing Buffy, Helen turned at her once more, saying quietly: "He-eh... can't hurt you now, without a wand, not-eh... not in a physical sense, but... he's a-a good _legilimens_, I-I'm not certain how-"

"A what?" Buffy asked.

"He can read minds... it's-eh... more complicated, and I don't know how well he can... without his wand, but-eh... be careful. I've silenced him, but the spell might wear out, and he sure won't be quiet then... Don't let him get to you, if he tries it, to-to dwell on your thoughts..."

Buffy gave her a look that was saying, that she very much doubted _anyone_ could read minds.

"You-eh... best put on some loud music, or-or try to distract yourselves with something, talk, or read a book..."

Now Buffy raised her brows appalled. Helen smiled amused. "Right, then... you know what I mean, ignore him, don't give him the chance to pick on any thoughts of yours, and it works best when-when you don't have any... important I mean."

At these words Giles gave Xander an odd look, then cleared his throat, saying: "Well, perhaps Xander-uh... should guard him then..."

Xander frowned, not sure he understood.

They left. Buffy, Willow and Xander agreed to take shifts. Xander was supposed to take the first one, then at night Willow would come to replace him until the early morning and then – if necessary and if Helen wouldn't manage to call for someone till then – when they expected Rodolphus to become grumpier and nastier, Buffy would take over.

Helen and Giles drove to her house. She fell asleep during the short drive and he woke her up gently when they arrived. "We're here." He whispered at her, after he had opened the door at for her and bowed down.

He helped her get up and they walked the short path to her front door. Every step was becoming harder and harder, the invisible someone tearing the ground underneath her away was getting stronger and stronger and Giles could feel her weight leaning onto him more and more. They entered the house. Helen's eyes were widened, she feared what to expect, yet when she saw the anteroom being very much in the state it used to be always, she lightened up a little.

"Oh, it doesn't seem to be so bad-oh!" They made an abrupt halt in the door to the living room. Helen let out a quiet gasp. The room hardly resembled the cosy, warm place anymore where she used to spend her evenings. Her eyes swept over it in desperation. The fireplace was of no use anymore, that was sure. The sofa had been torn apart, the coffee table couldn't be seen at all below the huge pile of stone and marble from the crashed fireplace. And then she saw it. The piano laid smashed on the floor, the strings were sticking up from everywhere, the keys were spread all over the room. She let go of Giles and limped towards it, there she knelt down and picked a few of the keys. Giles saw in surprise that color returned to her face, it was rosy now.

"I hate him!" She exclaimed, staring in disbelief at the remains of her piano. "Words cannot express... how much..." She was saying through pressed teeth. She looked around her. "He could have at least put the notes aside before he did it... bloody, ignorant..." She murmured angrily, looking sadly at the paper scraps of some sheet music. "That was the first edition for Merlin's sake! Damn... scumbag!"

Giles walked through the wrecks of furniture over to her. Suddenly she took out her wand, and was tapping it thoughtfully upon her lip. "Maybe I can repair it..." She said to herself, and began to ponder over possible spells that could mend the damaged instrument.

Giles crouched down to her, unsure whether she was serious, he was wondering if she might have suffered a concussion before. He carefully grasped at her wand, looking into her eyes.

"I-uh... I think that can wait, hm?" He asked softly. "Maybe we should go home."

She woke up from her thoughts and shook her head apologetically. "Oh, sorry, you're right... but we must find the number first."

"Can't-"

But she was already getting up. "I'm quite certain it's in my bedroom."

At the sight of the stairs leading up to her bedroom Helen moaned. But before she could say something, an arm gripped her at her waist, then another under her knees and suddenly she lost the ground under her feet literally, as Giles was already walking up the stairs, carrying her in his arms. She blushed and felt a little embarrassed, but in her bedroom he put her down again.

"Thank you." She said. Rodolphus seemed to have rampaged in the bedroom as well, though it didn't look as bad as downstairs. She went over to her bedside table on which the non-working phone stood. "It must be here then..." She opened the drawers one after one, but the note wasn't there. Then she checked the other table, even the dresser, but there was no sign of it either.

"It's not here... either..." She was frowning.

"Uh-... you know what? Let's-let's leave, let's go home, we'll search for it tomorrow morning, with the others together I'm sure we'll find it. Until then I-uh... I can try call Robson... if only to ask whether he knows someone, maybe he has some wizarding-uh... acquaintance who could help us contact your ministry."

Helen seemed hesitant, but then the reflection of her face in the mirror of her dresser caught her eyes. "Oh god," she sighed. _I look awful_... She turned at Giles. "Right, you're right... again..." She was about to leave the room. "But-... where do you want me to go?"

"Helen, you can't stay here – obviously. " He said in a patient, calm voice. Then he turned pink and felt a little uncomfortable that he automatically without thinking or even asking her assumed she'd go with him to his apartment. "I-I hope you don't-... I thought-uh... you could stay with me-... well not _with_ me, but- ... at my place, but of course if you'd rather-"

"Fine." She replied.

Anew Giles lifted her and was about to descend the stairs, when she stopped him: "Wait!"

"What is it?"

"I'd like to take my bathrobe at least."

"Of course." With Helen in his arms he turned around and walked back into the bedroom and she picked the bathrobe that was still lying on the half ruined bed.

He was almost upon the first step, when she squirmed again: "Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!"

He raised his brows. She gave him a sheepish smile. "Can we please take the record you gave me for Christmas?"

"Sure." Again he went back and Helen grabbed the record from one of the boxes, placing it on her lap upon the bathrobe.

They reached the anteroom and were about to leave. "Oh, wait-"

"What is it now?" Giles asked now impatient.

"Sorry," she said in a low voice, "I remembered I might need one other potion, it's in my kitchen..."

Giles sighed, but then obligingly turned around and made his way through the devastated living room into the kitchen.

"There." Helen pointed on a small bottle with transparent liquid on one of the counters under the window. They took it, then Giles hurried with her towards the front door. Though she wasn't heavy, still, carrying her through half of the house up- and downstairs showed him just in how bad a shape he was himself...

"..."

"We're done." He said firmly when he saw her lips move to say something, probably to ask for something else to retrieve.

"..."

"Unless it's a matter of live and death, we're not going back." He said, suppressing a smile this time.

Helen shook her head, throwing him an apologetic look. "No, sorry... just-eh... a book. I-I can live without it."

"Good. I do have very few at home myself." He said amused, while letting her down and opening the co-driver's door at his car for her.

When they arrived at Giles' place, he brought her to the bathroom, then when she assured him she could tend to her injuries herself, he left her alone, and went to try to call his friend James Robson from the council.

"This is the residence of James Robson, how may I help you?" A female voice sounded at the other end.

Giles cleared his throat. "Hello-uh, I-I'd like to speak with James, my name's Rupert Giles. It's-uh... it's rather urgent."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Giles, but Mr. Robson is not here right now. Would you like to leave a message?"

"Uhm-... when will he be back?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you, he wasn't precise as to how long he'll be absent, sir."

"Well, do you know where he is? Or how I can reach him?"

"No, sir, he said he was going on a mission, he didn't specify where."

"On a mission? For the council?"

The woman hesitated for a moment before continuing: "No... I... don't think so, not... directly at least... there wasn't any official assignment, if that's what you mean, sir, I would know about it."

"Hm, well, will you please tell him that I called? And ask him to call me back as soon as possible?"

"Of course, sir, I will."

"Thank you."

"Goodbye, Mr. Giles."

He hung up.

Where was Robson? _On what kind of an unofficial mission? _A noise from the bathroom interrupted his broodings. Some things had fallen on the floor, then a quiet "_Bloody phial_" followed. Giles went towards the door. "Is everything alright?" He asked.

"Yes, yes... I-ah... I might ndeed a little help here." He heard her saying, right before she cursed again.

"May I come in?"

Instead of an answer there was another loud bang, Giles didn't wait and entered. "What-?" He asked when he spotted the chaos in his bathroom. The cup with his toothbrush and toothpaste was smashed on the floor, together with a few others of his things like aftershave and razor and some small bottles with various contents. His cabinet on the wall was open, apparently she's been looking there for something.

Helen, wearing her bathrobe, stood over the basin, with one hand pressing against her neck, the other was shaking and holding a towel under her nose that was bleeding strongly again. She turned at Giles. "I'mb sorry, I'll cleand it all up, I prombise."

But Giles was ignoring the mess, he was staring at the cuts covering her legs, then he noticed the nasty looking wound on her left thigh.

"That looks-uh..."

She saw his glance. "Hm? Yes, I kndow, and undfortundately I've sbilt the damnb potiond." She pointed at the broken phial. "It would have closed the cut... I've tried the spell, but it seembs to be too deep, it won't heal... But the rest is fine at least."

"Fine?" He asked astonished, skimming once more over the numerous small wounds and bruises.

"Could you blease give me the Skele-Gro? It's in my purse."

He rummaged in the small bag and pulled out a peculiar bottle with a picture of a skull on it, then handed it over to her.

"Thanks."

"I'll get you a glass." He said, left the room and went to his bar, took an empty glass for her, and a Whiskey glass for himself.

The bleeding had stopped, Helen drank a proper portion of the bones-growing potion, then Giles persuaded her that he should disinfect the wound on her thigh with normal, profane muggle disinfectant, at least for now. She gave the disinfectant-bottle a distrustful look, but let Giles go on with it. They couldn't know for sure when she'd get new supplies for the spilt potion.

When they finished, he helped her get upstairs to where his bedroom was and she sat on his bed. Somewhat bashfully he offered her one of his shirts to change into as her bathrobe too got blood stains on it. She thanked him and he left her to get them something to drink.

Downstairs he remembered the record they had brought and put it on – upstairs despite the pain that the effects of the Skele-Gro were causing her, Helen smiled into herself at the familiar lovely sound of the violin, then climbed under the covers.

Giles brought her a glass of water.

"Thank you, again." She said. "You-eh... you saved my life tonight, with Buffy."

Giles sat down on the edge of the bed. His head was full of thoughts, of words he wanted to say, of new feelings, impressions he wanted to sort out, to analyse, only to come to a conclusion which he already was aware of somewhere deep inside.

"I thought," she remembered the moment when she heard Rodolphus pronouncing the killing curse twice, and shivered, "I almost got you all killed, I'm sorry..."

For a long moment Giles was peering into her eyes, hoping to find there a clue as to how to say what was on his mind right now.

Helen looked at him curiously, she didn't know how to interpret his expression.

"He-uh... almost killed _you_..." He said finally in an earnest tone that puzzled her, she felt as if there was some other message in those words that she wasn't getting exactly, and was hanging on his lips. He indeed seemed to want to say something else, but after a short pause he just got up abruptly. "So, now I-uh... best let you sleep." He smiled and made a step towards the staircase. "If you need anything, just say so, I'll be downstairs, I'll come... Good night now."

Helen frowned for herself once more, then turned out the lamp on the bedside table, her eyelids were heavy and she almost instantly fell into a deep, though not very calm sleep.

Giles quickly called the library to tell Xander that they'd have to keep and watch Rodolphus for the time being until either he'd hear from Robson or in the morning they'd find the number of Helen's friend. Then he too fell asleep on his sofa.

Early in the morning, it was about seven o'clock, Buffy walked into the library and found Willow and Xander arguing and yelling at each other. Rodolphus was smirking in the cage, obviously he found it all very entertaining.

"Willow, common!" Xander said. "I know it's weird..."

"Weird? ! It's against all laws of God and Man! It's Cordelia!" Willow shouted at him and a total incomprehension, disgust even were showing in her face. "Remember? The-the 'We hate Cordelia' club, of which you are the treasurer!"

"Look, I was gonna tell you-"

"Gee, what stopped you? ! Could it be shame? !" She asked in a scornful voice.

"All right, let's overreact, shall we? !"

"But I'm..."

"We were just kissing, it doesn't mean that much."

"It means," Willow gulped, tears were about to fill her eyes, "it just means that you'd rather be with someone you hate than be with me." She said then shook her head in disappointment and stormed out.

"Willow!" Xander cried after her.

"Willow, wait, what's-" Buffy shouted, then turned around at the noise as Xander pounded with his arms against the cage, yelling angrily at the wizard who was sitting inside, leaning against the wall.

"You! It's all your fault, you little foul-"

"What happened here? !" Buffy interrupted him. Rodolphus was laughing.

"And I thought I'd get bored to death here," he drawled. "But this was quite amusing, fun indeed, although a cheap one, but one mustn't expect too much from muggles-"

"Shut up!" Buffy snapped at him. "Xander? What the hell was that all about? ! You and Cordelia? !"

Xander ran his hands through his hair in desperation. "I-eh... Cordy..., yes, it's true." He said in resignation. "But I wanted to tell you, I swear. But this bastard..." He shot a nasty glare towards the wizard. "She was right, Ms. McGregor, I don't know how he did it, one minute I'm thinking of kissing Cordy in the closet," he turned red and looked at Buffy ashamed, "then I'm hearing a voice talking about it aloud, I thought it was just in my head at first, that I just, you know, drifted away or something, and then Willow is staring at me with these big brown wide opened eyes..." He shook his head. "Man, I didn't want her to find out like this... I'm such an idiot."

"Yes, you are." Buffy agreed. "Cordelia? !" She asked again in a bemused disbelief.

He gave a hurt look.

"We better do something else, maybe we should put on some loud music, as Helen suggested, otherwise who knows what else he'll-"

But Buffy got interrupted by a familiar grumpy voice that belonged to probably the last person they'd now wish to see.

"What is going on here? !" Snyder snapped.

Buffy looked at him alarmed. "What are you doing here? !" She asked him, completely forgetting to be cautious – his presence here took them entirely by surprise.

"Excuse me," he replied sarcastically, "this happens to be my school, and I don't remember students being allowed to spend their weekends here, library or not... I just saw Rosenberg running through the halls snivelling."

Rodolphus suddenly got up in his cage and Snyder turned at him in surprise.

"Who is that?"

"He's-"

"Sir, it's outrageous, I must protest against being locked up here in this disrespectful manner."

Buffy and Xander saw Rodolphus' expression change – as if someone had wiped away the arrogant smirk, the mad look in his eyes and the malicious grin from his face had disappeared, he was now looking at Snyder with raised eyebrows, but the look was rather anxious, pleading.

"I came here to talk to Mr. Giles, and then these children fell over me..." For a short second he looked Snyder deep into his eyes, as if waiting for something, then went forth: "The girl," he pointed at Buffy, "she even hit my face, I've never met with this kind of behaviour."

On Snyder's face a sign of satisfaction appeared.

"He's lying!" Xander yelled. "He didn't come to see Giles! He almost killed us all yesterday evening!"

"Now that is scandalizing!" Rodolphus exclaimed, and only Buffy seemed to have noticed the sparks in his eyes, she had the impression that he was actually enjoying himself. She rushed towards the principal.

"Snyder, listen, you mustn't believe him! He's a-a criminal, he's dangerous, he came to kill Ms. McGregor!"

"I beg your pardon," Rodolphus said indignantly. "I'm not here to _kill_ anyone," he continued and Buffy knew he was mocking them – _deceiving with the truth_ was the expression -, "now I don't know how you people usually solve your problems here oversees, but I for myself certainly wouldn't consider _killing_ the proper way to treat someone..." Again the short pause and the hypnotizing stare into Snyder's eyes. "I came to warn Mr. Giles... about her. Ms.-eh... McGregor."

"Warn him?" Snyder's attention was won. "Why? What did she do?"

Rodolphus smirked, then put up an earnest face. "She's not a person to be trusted, sir." He said solemnly.

Snyder nodded knowingly. "Don't I know it."

"Don't listen to him! He's trying to-"

"That's enough! I demand that you release this man NOW!"

"No! We won't!" Buffy shouted at the principal, then turned at Xander and told him quietly. "Call Giles, now, hurry!"

Xander ran towards the phone, Snyder shot him a suspicious look, while Buffy continued her attempts to make him see that Rodolphus wasn't what he seemed to be. "He's evil! If you let him go, you'll endanger many people-"

"Oh, please, sir, you wouldn't believe this nonsense, look at me, I'm a humble parson from Derbyshire, I came merely to do Mr. Giles a great service. I couldn't harm a living soul."

Giles was drinking coffee and reading the morning paper when the phone rang. He hurried to pick it up quickly, so that it wouldn't wake Helen who was still asleep upstairs.

"Yes?"

It was Xander.

"Giles? We have big trouble." He explained shortly what was going on in the library. "You best come here and as fast as you can, Snyder's..."

Giles hung up, rubbing his forehead nervously. He grabbed his car keys, then ran out.

At the sound of the closing door Helen woke up. "Rupert?... Rupert?" When she got no answer, she slowly sat up on the bed. Her body was still aching, but at least the burning pain was gone, and the bones in her right arm seemed to be almost fully healed. _Where could he have gone_? She thought, then remembered that they still needed to find Hermione's number. _Right_... She was looking around herself, then caught the sight of her wand on the bedside table and frowned, wondering. _Why haven't I thought of it before? I wonder if it'll work, after all I have no idea where the bloody piece of paper is, but still, it's worth a try_... She picked the wand, and after a few seconds where she tried to recall the precise image of the small paper note, she murmured "_Accio scidulam._" Almost right away she heard a curbed rustling noise. She turned towards the other bedside table and in disbelief watched her purse on it fidgeting. Then she laughed. _This is rich!_ It was there inside, all the time...

"Summers! You're already in bigger trouble than you can imagine... I'll only repeat this one more time! Un-lock the cage!" Snyder was talking in a threatening voice.

Buffy was desperate, she was thinking about knocking the principal out.

"No, no way!" Xander joined their argument again.

"Harris, that goes for you too. You have attacked and locked up an innocent person, a parson for God's sake!"

"He's not a parson!" Xander said impatiently.

"And what am I then according to you?" Rodolphus asked challenging, and before Buffy could stop Xander from answering, the boy snapped:

"You're a wizard, and a dirty one!"

Rodolphus gasped. "I resent such insults, sir, that is... rude to say the least," he said, pretending to be hurt and shocked but his eyes were laughing, and then after a short intense look at Snyder he added: "I shall direct a complaint at the Mayor! These accusations are egregious! I am the victim here, I've been treated here as some-some criminal, a-a murderer even, this is... when the Mayor hears about this insolent-"

Snyder went pale. The threats worked.

"Give me the keys." He said to Buffy. "Open the cage or I'll have you both expelled."

"Hell, Snyder, we're telling the truth! Let him go and he'll kill us within seconds!" Xander objected.

"Oh, please, young man, and how am I suppose to do it?" Rodolphus asked and Buffy realized that he was trying to provoke them to do something stupid or to make Snyder even more unwilling to believe any word they'd say, but it was too late: Xander already grabbed the wand from the cupboard and was waving with it furiously in front of Snyder's face.

"How about this? Doesn't this tell you enough? ! It's his wand, just a few hours ago he was torturing us with this thing!"

Snyder was frowning at the wooden stick, but appeared otherwise unimpressed. At the sight of his own wand the slightly mad expression returned to Rodolphus' face, he was looking at it hungrily.

Snyder caught the wand and pulled it out of Xander's hand. "Don't be ridiculous, Harris. I know you're stupid, no need to prove it!"

In that moment several things happened very fast: Giles entered the library with fast steps, at its sound Snyder turned around in such an unfortunate way that the wand he was holding brushed the grillage of the cage and he let it fall. Both Buffy and Rodolphus looked down immediately at the noise, but the wizard was faster. The wand had fallen right beneath the cage-door, he crouched down and could grab it before Buffy realized what he was doing.

There was a loud pop, then Rodolphus was gone.

"No!" Giles whispered.

Buffy lost her control and pinned the principal against the wall, pouring curses down on his head.

Helen placed her wand back on the bedside table, then crawled out of the bed. She took her purse and found the said note with Hermione's number. _Good, let's make an end to it_. She descended the stairs, looking around for the phone. There. She walked over towards the small desk on which several old books laid open, put the piece of paper on top of them and picked up the receiver. She was about to dial, when a popping sound made her turn around. The receiver slipped her fingers as she saw the gleeful wide smile upon Rodolphus' face.

"Buffy!" Giles shouted and hurried to separate her from the Principal.

"Sorry, but it's! All! His! Fault!" She said, pushing Snyder harder against the wall with every word.

"That might be so, but we must find him."

"Where's Helen? Is she alright?" Xander asked.

"Yes, yes, she's at my place, she should be safe, she had put some protection spells there-" He froze in the middle of his sentence.

"Those same protection spells that were supposed to keep him away from the school yesterday?" Buffy asked gloomily.

"Now I had enough-" Snyder began to meddle, when Giles threw him wildly against the cage.

"Shut up your bloody mouth!" Buffy and Xander stared in amazement as he spoke in a menacing whisper: "If anything happens to her I'll rip you apart myself." He let go of him and all three of them ran out of the library, leaving Snyder entirely stumped.

Rodolphus grinned at Helen, saying "Hello again! And forgive the interruption! I shall teach your friends some manners... after I'm done with you of course," he laughed. "_Crucio!_"

It was like experiencing a bad déjà-vu over and over. She screamed and glided to the ground, but he broke off the spell soon this time.

"What... what did you do to them?" She asked afraid of what the answer would be.

"Oh, they're fine, they're probably on their way here right now, don't worry, I'll give them a proper welcome... but let's not waste those few moments we have alone..." He observed both her hands: "Look at you! You left your wand upstairs..." He said in a false sympathetic tone. "Well, well, well, there were times when it didn't stop you... There were times you had so much power any of us could only dream of." He continued like telling a fairytale. "And look at you now... Hm, let's see how well you can still do, shall we? Who knows, maybe you'll kill me even, like you did kill Bella... _Sectumsempra_!"

She gasped. All the cuts and wounds from the previous night re-opened and the following Cruciatus-curse that hit her felt as if someone kept digging in them with a blunt knife.

"You know what I don't understand?" He asked shaking his head. "I want to know why – why did you choose to fight us? Why didn't you join us and the Dark Lord? You of all people – with your powers – he would have provided for you splendidly, you could have been the brightest pearl shining on his crown, his best, his right hand, he would have loved to have you." He said eagerly.

Helen exhaled and laughed dryly. "I cannot believe this." She said more to herself. "How- where does this confidence of yours... come from? This-this blind certainty that Voldemort had cared – for _any_ of you? ! Are you really that stupid? !"

Her contemptuous tone surprised him and made him angry. "Don't you dare to take his name into your unworthy mouth!"

She looked at him: "He didn't, your praised Dark Lord," she said poignantly, "he didn't move an eyebrow when I killed your beloved Bella – while you were away! When will it finally suck into your bloody brain – you didn't mean _anything_ to him!"

His face went red from the rage. "_Seco! Frange!_" There went the right arm again, fractured and cut open at the whole length from her hand to her elbow.

"You're a disgrace to the wizarding world," he said disgusted, when he composed himself again. "I heard what you did, it was pathetic, you embarrass us all."

"Then-eh...," she panted, "why don't you do us all a great service and get us rid off my embarrassing being at last?"

"The time will come." He assured her. "Right now I am enjoying it very much, these surprise visits. I'm sure they are very... _refreshing_... for you too..." He pointed his wand at her and murmured some spells, then kept cruciating her with new sorts of pain. He was very inventive when it came to torture. Over the many years when he was collecting experience, he brought the art of this one particular curse to a perverse perfection. After a few minutes she couldn't feel her arms or legs, she wasn't sure whether they were still attached to her body, her head felt as if someone had stirred her brain at high speed. _Think of something else, ignore the pain, think of something nice_, she told herself. Giles' face appeared in front of her eyes, the tiny wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, the wonderful wide smile that would always get her, for every time it suddenly changed his features so much, it surprised her every time anew – it made him look so much younger, it gave him something boyish, something almost innocent added to his otherwise so earnest, spiritual face... _Giles... He'd be here in a moment, with the others_ – she opened her eyes, and tried to gather her entire concentration, ignoring the pain. She looked at Rodolphus, fixing him with her eyes, turning off everything else around her, then whispered firmly:"_Excuto!_"

Suddenly Rodolphus flew through the living room and as if thrown by a strong pair of hands he crashed down in front of the fireplace. Helen raised her head to see what happened to him. He seemed unconscious. Blood was already pouring from her nose both inside into her mouth and out of her nostrils. She wanted to crawl to him to take away his wand, but couldn't move a single limb. Then Rodolphus slowly raised his head.

He touched his neck and exhaled: "Oh! That hurt! How-... hang on!" He looked at her, curiosity now showed in his eyes. "You did it... without a wand! But-"

In that moment the door flew open and Giles, Buffy, Xander and Willow stormed in.

Rodolphus looked from them to Helen and back, still amazed by what just happened, then he quickly recovered, turned on the spot and disapparated before Buffy could reach him.

"That is so unfair!" Buffy exclaimed, while Giles knelt down. The sight of her pained him: His shirt that she was wearing was soaked with blood, she was covered in countless cuts and flesh wounds, blood was flowing out of some of them, the wound from the previous day on her thigh that he had disinfected just a couple of hours ago, was now open, he could see the flesh, even for his stomach this was hard to digest – and he had seen some awful things during his Watcher's years... Her right arm laid on the floor in an unnatural position, as if it had just been attached carelessly to her shoulder.

"I-eh... I can't move...," she whispered.

"I'll call 911," Xander said moving towards the phone, but Helen interrupted him.

"No-eh... don't-"

"Helen, you must-"

"No, call-eh... call Hermione... there's... there's the number... on the books... tell her what happened... they'll come..."

"Fine, fine, we-uh... do that," Giles spoke to her, then raised his head at Willow. "Willow, would you call them?"

Willow nodded and picked the piece of paper on Giles's desk, then dialled, wondering what would expect her on the other line.

"Yes?" A female voice said.

"Äh-hello, here-here is Willow... Rosenberg, I-I am a friend of Ms. McGregor, she-she asked us to call this number." She said in a scared voice.

"Yes?" The woman replied reluctantly. "Is anything wrong? Is Helen alright?"

Willow breathed out a little relieved at hearing a friendly voice. "Ah-no, no, actually, we are having some troubles here, a-a wizard came, a Rodolphus Lestrange, he-he's here... he attacked us, her, she's badly injured, a-and he escaped..."

For a short moment there was silence on the other line, then Hermione said shortly. "Ok. We're coming in a moment. Where are you?"

"At Giles' apartment, it's-"

"Right. We'll be there soon." She hung up and left Willow holding the receiver, looking very much astounded.

"So?" Xander asked.

"She said they were coming. They'd be here in a moment."

"You heard? Your friends will be here in a short while." Giles talked at Helen, but she only moaned some indistinguishable tones, he then carefully lifted her motionless body and carried her upstairs to lay her on the bed. Buffy followed him.

"I still think we should have brought her to a hospital, look at the state of her... if those wounds get infected... plus she might even have some inner injuries." She said.

Giles nodded, he too was having doubts, thinking what the right thing to do would be. "I don't know, maybe you're right, on the other hand, she might not be safe there, he could come..."

"Ok, let's give those guys an hour, when they're not here till then, I say hospital... Look, I could stay there with her..."

Giles nodded, but wasn't really listening. He sat on the bed, took Helen's hand, the one that seemed more or less intact. She seemed to have fallen into some semi-conscious state and kept whispering some strange things about someone's eyes, but Giles didn't understand.

For a while they were just standing or sitting there in an awkward silence, exchanging concerned and indecisive looks. Buffy hated to just stand around idly. "I wish I could get my hands on him..."

Helen moaned again and looked at Buffy through half opened eyes. "How... comes he... he couldn't... kill you?" She whispered and they looked at her confused. "How-... he aimed the... the killing curse at you yesterday... and nothing-"

Buffy remembered. "You mean when he waved his stick at me?" She shrugged. "I don't know what was supposed to happen but all that did were some blue sparkles coming from it... it looked pretty cool actually."

Helen frowned a little. "Hm... that's odd..." Then her eyes closed again and she wouldn't say anything sensible more, but again her mind seemed to have drifted away as she kept muttering words like _her eyes_ and _why hers _that didn't make any sense to them.

"I should stake Snyder." Buffy said angrily.

"Snyder! I forgot all about him." Xander sighed.

"He's probably have us all expelled by now."

"We'll deal with him later." Giles replied quietly without taking his eyes from Helen and the three wondered just what exactly he had in mind when he said _deal_...

Some twenty minutes later, though it appeared to them like ages, a knock on the door broke the silence. Buffy gave Giles a cautious look: "I'll get it."

She ran downstairs, quickly took one of Giles' crossbows out of a chest near the door, then peered through the peephole outside. There stood a young woman with chestnut curly long hair and a red-haired tall young man. Buffy opened the door, hiding the crossbow behind her back for the time being. "Yes?"

"I'm Hermione Granger, you called us?" The woman said calmly.

"I guess," Buffy replied a little hesitant, staring from one to the other. They looked too normal to be wizards, too ordinary, too... harmless, she thought. Was this the help that came to catch this Lestrange-guy? !

Hermione noticed Buffy's doubtful look. "This is Ronald Weasley, he's an auror." Ron smiled proudly and offered Buffy a hand. She shook it, but still seemed unconvinced. _Auror?_ _What's that supposed to be? If it's some kind of a demon._..

Giles now joined them. "Please do come in." He recognized the face of the man, though it looked quite different now – the last time he saw it, it was burning up in Helen's fireplace.

"Thank you." Hermione entered, Ron followed her. At hearing the moans from somewhere above their heads, Hermione looked at Giles, who just nodded, and she hurried upstairs, Giles close behind her, while Ron waved friendly at the others and introduced himself again to Xander and Willow.

When Hermione saw Helen laying on Giles' bed, she stopped, but didn't say anything. Giles observed her very carefully and was actually relieved to see that the young woman kept calm and didn't seem too alarmed by Helen's appearance. "Alright," she murmured, then put her bag on the bed and opened it. She pulled out several little bottles with potions and some tubes with peculiar inscriptions and names of salves Giles never heard of. She turned at him. "I-ah... you best go downstairs, I'll take care of her."

"Is-... will she...?"

"I'll let you know, but at the first sight it doesn't seem too bad."

Giles raised his brows at the statement, but she smiled at him reassuringly and expected him to leave. "Do you-uh... need anything? Any... bandages or...?" He asked.

"No, thank you, I have everything." She pointed at the small bag.

He nodded, then reluctantly descended the stairs.

Willow, Buffy and Xander were telling Ron about the events of the previous hours and Giles joined them, but kept shooting stealthy glances towards his bed upstairs. He could hear Hermione murmuring some spells and Helen's quiet incoherent whimper about the _eyes_ of someone.

After about half an hour the young witch came down, she looked content, satisfied. "It looks good. But there are some scary cuts that will take longer to heal, that I couldn't close with a spell just yet, but I cleaned the wounds... and put some healing salve on it... And she doesn't seem to have any inner bleedings either. To repair the bones will take some time as well, it will be painful but... she will be fine in a few days."

Giles wanted to say something, but she interrupted him: "So, now tell me what exactly happened here," she demanded.

Again, they began to explain everything, Giles told her what he knew from Helen since the day Rodolphus first surprised her in her house right until the moment they found him just an hour ago in Giles' apartment and he then disapparated.

"I don't understand how he could enter, and yesterday in the library neither, she said she had placed some spells that would prevent him, keep him away." Willow said looking at Giles.

"Yes," he agreed. "She said she had done some enchantments upon the school and here as well... But-uh... they don't seem to have worked."

"Hm, that's not surprising, considering her state." Hermione said dryly, then raised her head at Ron. "Ron, can you put new protection spells around here?"

"Sure." Ron got up to his feet, looked around himself for a moment, then walked over towards the front door and there began to mutter some Latin words while drawing imaginary circles in the air with his wand. They all watched him while Hermione was thinking. When Ron finished, he sat back on the sofa between Hermione and Willow. Giles and Xander took seats in the armchairs at their sides, Buffy was standing, leaning onto the fireplace, throwing expectant glances at the two wizards.

"It's a wonder she can do any spells at all," Hermione said thoughtfully.

"Well, she is-uh... still hoping to regain her magic," Giles answered, "after she had lost it in-"

"_Lost_? !" Hermione stared at him incredulously. "Is that what she told you? !"

Giles looked at her taken aback, Ron shot her a warning look.

"W-why yes. She-uh... she said she lost her powers after the Battle of Hogwarts." Giles said slowly.

Hermione laughed a little hysterically now. "Oh, she didn't _lose_ them! She gave them away! She tried to get rid of them!" She said loudly.

"Hermione," Ron squirmed, "I don't think this is the place..." But she looked at him stubbornly.

"Oh I think this is the very place, Ron. I think these people should know – they are after all putting their lives on risk for her, they deserve to know why that's necessary." She continued in an instructive tone. Ron sighed and leant back on the sofa in resignation.

Giles kept looking from Ron to Hermione, she seemed somehow pleased that at last she got the chance to present her view of things that she considered was the only right one, the only reasonable way of looking at it – which was to condemn it.

"It is a long story, too long to explain it to you in every detail." She said. "However I'll try to tell it so that you understand it right... There is... Helen..." She paused and frowned and suddenly found herself somewhat unsure about how she should start. "Right, I don't even know where to begin."

"Then-uh... start at the end, it helps sometimes." Giles suggested, but he felt a little uneasy about encouraging the young witch to tell them Helen's story when Helen wouldn't hear it, but he couldn't help himself, he was too curious to know finally...

"Alright... After the Battle of Hogwarts – or rather after the death of Severus Snape she became very powerful, she was before too, but after that – apart from Harry whom we can hardly compare to her, because the source of their powers is entirely different, well, putting Harry aside, she probably was the most potent witch there was... with extraordinary might..."

"Who's Severus Snape?" Xander asked.

Hermione looked at them in surprise, all four of them had the same question in their eyes.

"You don't know?" She asked astonished. When they shook their heads, she said: "Well, then perhaps it is better indeed to start at the beginning..."

_AN: The end...for now :)) thank you for reading this far, I didn't come as far as I wanted to so the title doesn't make much sense now, but it would be too long otherwise, so... the story will follow next time. Please, please review, some parts may be a little cheesy, or too phoney, but I hope it's still believable, convincing somehow... Some parts I'm not satisfied with, so let me know, share your thoughts._

_And I soo need to expand my vocabulary... can anyone recommend a nice book with lots of cool words I could use? :D_


	21. Chapter 21: Helen's story II

Chapter 21

_AN: Many apologies for taking so long this time, I have some horrible weeks behind me, and then to it added the huge amount of work and to it even… Sherlock the BBC-Series After I have watched all the six episodes couple of days ago, I suddenly kept hearing this acerb, dry voice of Sherlock in my head telling me how my following story and plot are entirely lame and un-logical and don't make any sense anyway, so I felt a little intimidated :D _

_This chapter is a short one, but I thought I better get rid of it now as it is, before another work would prevent me again to write more. Here you will find revealed some bits of Helen's history in the pre-Sunnydale period, not everything though, to keep you guessing . I should mention at this point that originally I intended to write a HP-fanfiction but later decided to set it into the Buffyverse. So in this chapter you'll sort of find the bits from the original idea, which is a few years old now. At that time I liked it a lot, now I'm not sure… _

„Snape and her... they were bound by wandlore..." Hermione began to explain.

"By what?" Four incomprehensive looks were directed at her.

"It's the wand-magic... not the magic _with_ the wands, but the magic _of_ the wands, you see wands are not just things, inanimate objects, they have... I'm not sure how exactly to describe it... let's say the wands do have some kind of a life of their own. There is magic in them that the wizard – the owner – cannot control. A part of it demonstrates alone in the fact that it is the wand that chooses its wizard, not the other way round." She noticed Giles' doubtful look. "Oh you would be able to perform spells with most of the wands to a certain point, but only with the one wand that was made for you can you unfold your magic to its full extent."

"Ok, what does this all have to do with her?" Buffy asked a little impatiently, raising her eyes towards Giles' bedroom.

"I'll come to it in due time," Hermione replied and looked at her taken aback, then continued: "You see every wand is unique. Since over two thousands of years when the wandmakers have been producing them, you would not find two identical ones. They differ in their size and their weight, are composed of different ingredients, such as phoenix feathers, dragon scales, unicorn hairs – those are very rare, or Thestral tail-hair..."

Now the four of them were looking at Hermione in amazement, Buffy obviously was thinking that the witch was kidding them, Willow just hang on her lips to hear more, Xander looked puzzled, and Giles was wondering whether he would ever get to see all those creatures he had thought only existed in fairy tales till now.

"Not important... There exist however... very few, and this is interesting because no one really knows nowadays anymore how many still may be laying in the storage rooms of the wand-shops... there exist a few-eh... couplets... they have actually a name of their own." Hermione tipped her fingers on her lip trying to remember the exact term.

"Yes?" Buffy again spoke. As much as she would like to hear the story, in the moment she was rather restless of waiting to find and catch Rodolphus.

"I'm sorry, I won't remember it now... Anyway, these couplets are very rare-"

"What are they?" Willow asked eagerly.

"They are wands that are... _almost_ identical. To my knowledge there have been seven of these couplets so far, that is those that have been discovered and actually came to their specific use... But it is certain that there are more, Mr. Ollivander told me he knows about twenty four. Almost all of these couplets have been made hundreds of years ago, according to Ollivander his ancestor had made the last one in the 15th century."

"Yes, but what are they?"

"They give their owners more power than usual wands." Ron replied.

"Well, it's more complicated than that, isn't it?" Hermione said instructively. "Their spells have more and better effect when they act _together_… The first of these couplets was made by one of the first wandmakers and it actually – according to Ollivander at least – happened by a mistake: By a very odd coincidence the man used the wood from the same tree, the heartstrings from the same dragon and also the hair from the very same veela twice and so made two quite identical wands without realizing, there must have laid a period of many years between the time he created the one and then the other... These two wands were – and herein lies another unlikely coincidence that had started it all – purchased about the same time, within a decade in fact, by a wizard and a witch whose paths crossed later, again accidentally. And it was then that the extraordinary power, the particular magic of this special pair, this first couplet, was discovered... The witch and the wizard met in a war, they were facing each other in a fight, yet any offensive spell they would cast against the other would not work, instead their wands created some sort of a connection, something must have happened between them, and then finally they fought on the same side, making it to their advantage that all spells they cast together would be twice as powerful as usually. Not much is known about it, obviously, because there have been exactly only just seven such couples so far. Nor do I know when or how actually the _foedus virum_ was added to it."

"The what?" Xander asked.

"The pact of power?" Giles frowned.

"Yes, it's a ritual called _foedus virum_ or _foedus virgarum_-"

"The pact of the virgins?" Xander asked raising his head.

" – the alliance of wands." Hermione glared at him, Ron giggled. "It's not quite clear when it was first used or who actually invented it. And I wasn't able to find out how at all they managed…" Hermione again shook her head and furrowed her brows, apparently she disliked having gaps in her knowledge. "It's supposed to strengthen the bond between the two wizards and their wands. If performed correctly, it did bestow further powers upon the persons and their wands… While they already could do extraordinary magic without it, the ritual yet would make them, well, not unbeatable, but… sort of, compared to other wizards anyway. One of its features for example, that will make you understand Helen's position in our world, was that the _foedus virum_ ensured that should one of the couple die, then his powers and those of his wand would transfer into the other – saving the wand of the perished would be kept intact."

The four non-wizarding listeners were looking at Hermione, perplexed, confused, and she wasn't sure they could still follow. Giles looked like he was trying his best, so did Willow, but the gaze on Xander's and Buffy's face seemed blank. Hermione sighed quietly before continuing.

"You must understand – the chance that the two wizards, who were destined for these two very rare wands, actually meet, that they'd actually live in the same generation, even in the same century, is... small to say the least. There are thousands, no, probably tens of thousands of wands waiting for their wizards, some have to wait only a few days before they find their owner right when they leave the hands of a wandmaker, some have to wait years, hundreds of years, laying around in the storage-rooms, packaged in nice leathern boxes... Mr. Ollivander told me that there have been quite a few that never came to unfold their powers simply because they were destined for wizards who could never have met. Or who did not claimed their wand or purchased another one for whatever reasons.

As the wands are almost identical, so – as I understand it – are the wizards also, well, obviously they're not identical, but they are… very close, there is supposed to be a very strong, unique bond between them, they resemble each other in their character, in their thinking perhaps, their views, their general disposition, their likes and dislikes, they are soul mates really, more than that, imagine two people who have been destined for each other, hundreds of years ago, long before they were born, I've been hoping to find out more about it, it sounds so romantic," Hermione blushed as she saw Ron's raised eyebrows, then hurried to continue, "but it's almost impossible, there are no reliable records, all I know is what Mr. Ollivander told me who knew bits from his ancestors, bits from his fellow wandmakers, but it's all very vague."

Ron looked around at them. "You see Helen never talks about it ever." He said, explaining why they knew so very little about it all.

"Well," Hermione continued, "imagine two such persons, with this special tie created between them, and they actually meet, they actually get the privilege to experience what it means, to live the specialness that others haven't got." Hermione spoke calmly, but Giles found something irritating in the way she spoke, she had this way of _I-am-explaining-the-world-to-you-now_ in her voice, something very judgemental.

"It's been observed that every time these couples, every time one of these seven couples actually did meet, it was in a very particular period, within events that would have a long-run effect on the later course of things, mostly during wars or such – just as it was the case of the first pair. The ritual I mentioned was supposed to make sure that even if one of the two wizards died, the other would keep or even, as later the ritual was upgraded in the 15th century, enlarge his own powers... and – the most striking peculiarity to me – it would even enable them to perform magic _without_ the wand as long as the wand of the deceased wasn't destroyed."

"Weren't they ever tempted to kill each other then? You know – in order to become stronger?" Ron wondered.

"Would you kill your soul-mate? The one person who was meant to be with you, who was destined for you? Who had been fighting at your side?" Hermione asked reproachfully, implying that Ron's question was needless. "Besides the magic of their wands ensured that they couldn't harm each other in any way, not even with other wands."

All four of them were now utterly confused. This was just too much information. It all sounded too bizarre, too… doubtful even, too obscure and surreal. Hermione sighed once more. "Right, let's make it short. Helen and Snape have been the last known such couple, the first since 1412. They both had bought their wands at Ollivanders, our wandmaker in London."

Giles frowned and was about to ask where exactly in London one could purchase a wand, but Hermione kept explaining in a teacher's voice. "After more than five hundred years," she emphasized, "here they were again, the _foedus virum_ was performed by Nicholas Flamel, who had it performed in 1412 as well."

"Nicholas Flamel?" Giles stared at Hermione in disbelief. "The medieval writer who died in 1413?" The corners of his mouth were twitching into a smile as if he was about to tell her that finally he discovered a flaw in her story and that she has been kidding them all quite successfully until now.

Hermione nodded, not noticing Giles' grin. "Oh he didn't die then, he had invented the sorcerer's stone and lived for another 600 years, he only died some ten years ago, a long story and not of relevance here." Hermione said, when Giles looked at her incredulously, but she waved her hands vehemently, she didn't want to get sidetracked again.

"And then Professor Snape was killed in the battle and due to the ritual the power of his wand went over to hers. She," Hermione made a short meaningful pause, "at that moment – gained powers none of us, not even her probably, would even dare to dream about."

"Yeah," Ron nodded thoughtfully, then grinned: "She blew up one whole wing of the castle as the Death Eaters had been approaching it, with a single spell." He said, an amused admiration was detectable in his voice.

"She killed Bellatrix Lestrange, the wife of Rodolphus, who's been responsible for…", Hermione shivered a little, remembering the moments when her, Ron and Harry had been held captured at the manor of Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix cruciated her repeatedly to find out about the sword of Gryffindor, "torturing wizards in order to get information. She was the closest to Voldemort. Others may have joined him mostly out of fear or out of some twisted foresight, worried about their future if they wouldn't, but Bellatrix, and Rodolphus were indeed true fanatics…"

Suddenly a loud, persistent knock on the door interrupted them. They all exchanged baffled glances, then Giles got up and slowly walked towards the door. "Who is it?" He asked loudly.

"It's George Weasley," said a man's voice.

Ron stood up. "Oh, it's George, it's my brother, we left him a message, I didn't think he would come so soon."

Giles opened the door and the other familiar red-haired face was looking at him earnestly.

"Mr. Giles, we met before." George offered him his hand to shake. "I heard what happened. Well, not exactly, but I got your message." He turned at Ron. "I came as soon as I could. Had to promise Angelina that I won't do anything stupid." He rolled his eyes. "As if I ever did."

Giles stepped aside and motioned George to enter.

"Thank you. How is Helen?" He asked looking around the living room.

In that moment Helen's quiet murmur from upstairs could be heard, the meaningless moans about someone's green eyes that weren't hers. George raised his head towards the railing upstairs.

"She'll be fine." Hermione assured him. "He really didn't spare her, but she'll recover, give it a few days."

"Good." He replied nervously. "So, what is going on? Where is Lestrange?"

Ron cleared his throat, then said quietly. "We don't know yet, he had escaped before… Hermione is telling them about the thing…"

George frowned at his brother. "What thing?"

"You know, about Helen and Snape and… the thing, the spell, you know." He gave him the look that was saying George surely knew and motioned him to follow him to the sofa.

George looked at Hermione in disbelief, she at him provocatively, he wanted to say something poignant, but Ron's short "Don't" stopped him and resigned he joined the others sitting around the coffee table.

"Where was I?" Hermione asked herself.

"You were talking about Bellatrix Lestrange." Willow said.

"Right. Helen killed her, even after Bellatrix had taken her wand, she just looked at her, didn't even say a word and all we saw was the sudden burst of green light, just as Bellatrix was grinning at her widely, then her face froze and… well, she was dead. After that she knocked out some other Death Eaters and Harry managed to destroy Voldemort…" Hermione gave them a meaningful look. "With him gone she actually became the strongest witch, with the most powerful magic on her disposal, it must have been so exciting, such a challenge… she could do stuff, perform spells and enchantments beyond imagination… had she wanted to."

"What happened?" Giles asked.

"She didn't want to." George replied. "She chose not to." He added firmly as Hermione was about to say more.

"That's not all." The young witch said stubbornly.

"Hermione," George said warningly, but she merely gave him a cold look before continuing.

"Soon she began to… to avoid people, to shun everyone's company-"

"That's not quite true, you know that, only because she had no one left and the rest of us was simply too busy to take notice-"

"Are we supposed to feel responsible-"

"That's not what I said!" George snapped.

"Hey," Ron tried to appease them, Hermione and George were shooting wary glances at each other. "It doesn't matter now."

"But what happened?" Willow demanded to know.

"One day," Ron began cutting Hermione's and George's attempts to continue, "I believe it was about two years ago from now, almost a year after the battle, we found her – we went to visit her in her London apartment on an evening and we didn't find her there, only a-an old book with some odd rituals of dark magic… brrr," he shrugged, "really scary stuff, it was opened on a chapter that was describing a dark, powerful ritual of how to deprive your opponent, another wizard of his whole magical power. We, or better George had guessed that she might have wanted to try it on herself… then we went to the shore house where my brother thought she would be, it took us ages to break all the protection spells around the place-"

"We reached her just in time," Hermione said, "it was so typical for her, she didn't thought about the consequences-"

"Didn't she?" George asked in a challenging voice.

"She didn't even read the damn chapter till the end! It explicitly warned the user that the ritual can on occasion lead to death and that if used upon oneself it most certainly would," Hermione was saying, emphasizing every word, "I think she can owe her life only to her special condition, to the fact that she wasn't an ordinary witch before either, otherwise she would surely have lost her powers entirely. And hadn't we come just in time to disrupt the ritual and destroy the settings…" Hermione shook her head, then after a short pause she said: "It was completely insane, I don't understand how she could do such a thing."

"Well, she'll have her reasons, Hermione." Ron said calmly.

"What reasons? ! What could have been so terrible that would make her do it? ! To throw away what she was, all the possibilities at her hands, Merlin! She had responsibilities…" She paused again, it was clear to them that she had tried but could not justify the action in any way, couldn't find any acceptable excuse for it. "I mean, sure it was hard, difficult after the battle, to go on, but everyone has suffered their losses then, every one had been sad, every one of us has lost some family, their friends, relatives, parents…. but none of us blamed magic for it, though it all hurt-"

"Yes? ! Can you really see, Hermione? ! Whom have you lost? ! How can you-" George was outraged, Ron has never seen his brother like this, he seemed to have difficulties to put his thoughts in words. "You have told us, you yourself have enlightened us in your cheeky _know-it-all-better_ manner several times on that-that thing with the wands and the special… bond between the two wizards, their unique relationship for which they had been destined…" He shook his head, looking at her angrily. "How… can you really understand what it must have been like – how can any of us know – what it must have felt like – to lose the one person you were destined to spend your life with, who was your soul mate, who was the one that understood you best, that knew your deepest secrets, your weaknesses and strengths, your thoughts, who was your other half and without whom you're lost, you're… amputated… Have you lost someone like that ever? !" George said in a loud voice and his words made Giles stiffen. He felt strangely out of place. There already had been a _perfect_ – because destined – person for her, how could he ever fill his shoes, of this Snape? Would he want to?

Hermione just stared at George for a moment, then said: "She almost died because of her _foolishness_!"

"Well, perhaps that was her choice too!" George almost yelled this time and Giles' eyes widened at the statement. The older Weasley laughed sarcastically. "I… I don't believe this. You're wasting your time here with this stuff, with talking about things of which you have no idea," he spoke agitated, "while Lestrange is lurking somewhere around, probably planning his next attack… you might be the brightest witch on Earth but you surely sometimes-"

"George," Ron interrupted him.

"Guys," Buffy walked towards them. "I'm glad we're finally at the important subject here."

George looked at her blankly, he almost forgot there were other people in the room.

"We need to find this guy," Buffy said impatiently. "Before he charms himself back here again."

"He can't come here," Hermione answered, still a little riled, "we placed the protection spells around here-"

"Yeah, you see, so did she yesterday and it didn't keep him away, so don't take this personally, but I don't care much about your so called protection hocus-pocus." Buffy said unimpressed.

"That was her, what did you expect? !" Hermione said. "She can hardly do anything! For someone as strong as Rodolphus Lestrange her spells were no match!"

"Well, he can't be that strong, his _spells_ surely didn't work on me!" Buffy said.

"What? !" Hermione frowned incomprehensively.

"Well," Giles said in a loud voice, hurrying to interrupt the emerging argument, he stood up. "Be that as it may, let us-uh… all calm down a little and think."

"Right."

They began to discuss their options on how to find Rodolphus. They decided that Buffy and George would do another round through the town, stopping at Willy's, Ethan's and Angel's trying to find out whether there were any traces of Rodolphus or whether someone has seen or known anything about him, while Ron accompanied by Xander should go – just in case – refresh the protection spells on Xander's and Willow's homes. Later – if they wouldn't succeed till then in finding and defeating him – they would meet near Helen's house to look around there once more.

Hermione, Giles and Willow stayed at Giles' apartment. Giles let Hermione in on their Watcher-Slayer duties and on Hellmouth, she seemed very interested in the demon-world and was listening eagerly as he and Willow were enumerating some of their adventures. Every now and then Hermione would check on Helen upstairs, who was half asleep, half awake, tossing and turning, quietly moaning over and over the same incoherent stuff about the green eyes of some woman.

"What is it with the eyes? Do you know what she's talking about, what it means?" Willow finally asked Hermione when she returned downstairs.

Hermione squirmed uncomfortably, obviously she knew. "Eh-… that's-eh… private, I-eh," she shook her head, "I don't feel that it'd be right for me telling you... you best ask her yourself." She walked towards them and sat down on the sofa. "But then again apparently she didn't tell you a whole lot about herself."

"No," Giles replied thoughtfully.

"How long have you known her?" Willow asked.

Hermione thought for a moment. "It's been some five-six years I guess. She had replaced Professor Bins as a history of magic teacher, who was a ghost."

Both Giles and Willow stared at her.

"I don't exactly know why he needed to be replaced, I heard rumours that he became somewhat unreliable towards the end of our fourth year, going to some wild ghost-gatherings or even muggle-parties, scaring people, ravaging in the streets in some Scottish towns at night. Hagrid said that he might have discovered at last what possibilities and opportunities he had been missing as a ghost and… sort of wanted to compensate for his boring life as it had been before he died and then for his even more boring being as ghost later… it did make sense." She nodded to herself. "Well, anyway, he was gone by the end of the fourth year and Helen came. We actually met her in the holidays already, she was in the Order, she was staying at the Grimmauld Place with us during the last weeks of the summer."

When Willow asked what kind of an Order she meant, Hermione began to tell them about the wizarding events of the past years, about Hogwarts, about Dumbledore and Voldemort, about Harry's special role, about the war between the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix that ended with the Battle of Hogwarts.

Upstairs Helen was laying in the wide bed, many images were rushing through her fevered head, of Rodolphus' face distorted with hatred, of the widely grinning Bellatrix standing opposite to her in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, of Dumbledore's apologetic sad expression during their last conversation, and over and over the image of Severus laying on the floor of the Shrieking Shack and staring into Harry's eyes, the eyes of Lilly Evans…

A semi-loud pop seemed to have woken her up a bit. She tried to look around her, her vision was still blurry, but couldn't see anything, then a flash of white light of a spell hit her, someone had silenced her. She wanted to speak, to ask who's there but no sound would come out of her mouth. Despite that every movement hurt her she tried to sit up, when there was another flash of light and the tall dark-haired figure of Rodolphus Lestrange appeared at her bedside, with a malicious smile. He placed his forefinger on his lips, asking her to be silent, knowing very well that she couldn't speak or scream even if she wanted to.

Downstairs Hermione ended her explanations and frowned, remembering Buffy's words from before.

"What did she, the girl – Buffy – what did she mean when she said that the spells, Rodolphus' spells _didn't work on her_?"

"Yes," Giles said, "there was something yesterday, Helen found it-uh… odd too… he cast a spell on Buffy, twice. I don't remember it exactly, it sounded very much like-uh… _Abrakadabra_? From what Helen said before it was supposed to kill her but nothing happened…"

"The killing curse? !" Hermione exclaimed shocked.

Yet an odd sounding rumbling from upstairs interrupted them and then a man's "Shsh". They turned their heads towards Giles' bedroom and to their horror saw Rodolphus Lestrange standing there, pointing his wand somewhere they couldn't see.

"How-" Hermione spoke in utter surprise and then Rodolphus pointed his wand at her, realizing only now who she was. His eyes sparkled hungrily. She managed to take out her wand, yet when he shouted "_Crucio_" and she "_Protego_" to block his spell, her wand gave off a flash of blue light, but it did not stop Rodolphus' curse, it hit her into her chest and she screamed as the familiar pain in her head emerged. She fell. Giles pushed Willow under the staircase, out of the line of the spells.

"_Expelliarmus!_" Rodolphus yelled and Hermione's wand flew out of her hand up and over to him where he caught it. "_Crucio!_" He repeated. "_Impedimenta!_" Hermione froze and laid motionless on the floor, her gaze blank, but she seemed to be breathing.

"Right." Rodolphus said contentedly. "I guess there is no point for you to remain silent anymore. _Finite!_" Giles heard Helen coughing. He looked around, searching for some weapon he could arm himself with. There was the open chest from which Buffy had taken the crossbow earlier. Rodolphus didn't seem to care for them, obviously he thought the two muggles couldn't harm him in any way or rather he didn't really find them worth noticing. Giles shortly turned at Willow and whispered to her that she was to stay there, not move. He wanted to rummage frantically in the chest to pick something useful when a high pitched scream echoed through his flat, it was the most horrible sound Giles has ever heard, it was cutting his ears. Without further thinking, without considering what he could actually do, he jumped up determined to stop the wizard at whatever prize it would take. He ran upstairs, saw a bundle of pale bare skin and white tunic covered in blood laying on the floor, Rodolphus standing next to it, smiling like a maniac. Giles was about to throw himself at the man, to fight him with his bare hands, when the wizard noticed him.

"_Excuto!_" Rodolphus shouted and Giles suddenly felt as if someone with an extraordinary force had picked him up and then he flew downstairs and was smashed, with his back he hit the hard wall in the middle of his staircase and blacked out.

Helen tried to turn her head to see what happened and who actually was Rodolphus' last target.

"Look, dear, what I've learned from you! A new spell! And it works splendidly, I must compliment you, you're so…," he shrugged, "inventive, just like Severus, ah," he sighed, "I do miss him sometimes, don't you?"

There was a quiet groan as Giles came to himself again, half laying, half sitting, leaning onto the wall.

"Oh, your muggle friend is awake, what's his name again, Ripper or something, how ridiculous really... What should we do to him, hm? Any suggestions?" He looked down at her. "Any new spells you'd like to teach me? None?" He turned to Giles. "_Crucio!_"

Giles felt some invisible knives stabbing into his chest and his arms, as if trying to pin him to the wall he was leaning onto.

Rodolphus turned back at Helen, continuing in a casual tone. "No? No ideas?" He shook his head pretending to be disappointed. "You said yourself that I was boring you, doing the same stuff all over again, well then tell me what to do next…"

She was moving her lips but it seemed that to utter a single word was costing her terrible efforts. "Don't…"

"Don't what?"

"Break… it," she murmured, she heard Giles' heavy breathing and his gasps.

"Why-?" He asked, but got interrupted as the door went open and Buffy, George, Ron and Xander stepped in. They walked over to the sofa and spotted there Hermione's motionless body on the floor. Willow, who's been hiding under the staircase, pointed with her finger towards the ceiling upstairs and pulled Xander to her.

"Oh, this is intolerable!" Rodolphus drawled in an irritated, impatient voice. "Do these people have no manners at all? !" He gave Helen a short look as if waiting for her to agree with him, then turned at the group downstairs. Ron was just about to run over to Hermione when Rodolphus knocked him out with a quick spell.

George grasped his wand to attack, but Buffy was already rushing towards the stairs, past Giles, up to where Rodolphus stood. The wizard kept shooting one curse after another at her, but nothing seemed to have the slightest effect on her and for a few seconds George just stared at the blond girl, who didn't appear to be anything more, any stronger than an average teenage girl, she wasn't even very tall, yet when she reached the now utterly irritated Rodolphus, she struck and slapped him hardly, entirely unimpressed by all the blue flashes emerging from his wand, she beat the wand out of his hand. At last she threw him on the floor and then picked his fallen wand and before Helen or George could stop her, she broke the wooden stick in two halves and threw them away.

"Dead wand," Buffy said firmly and satisfied, recalling Hermione's creepy words about _wand's inner life_. "You best shut up, unless you want to join it." She added pointing at the two separate small wooden parts spread on the floor, when Rodolphus opened his mouth to let out a shower of curses.

Giles felt an immediate relief, the stabbing pain ceased and he looked up. George hurried upstairs, he paused shortly as he reached Giles. "Are you alright?"

Giles nodded reassuringly and George helped him to stand up. They walked past Buffy and both knelt down to Helen, ignoring Rodolphus' furious glances. At the sight of Helen George let out a gasp, then covered his mouth with his hand and look into her eyes. But she was looking at Giles, her lips moving to say something they couldn't distinguish. Already Hermione and Ron came running and Giles heard their voices like from a great distance, he wasn't paying any attention to them, but kept fixing Helen's gaze, trying to make her let her eyes open, not to close them...

The others were talking all at once, having a fevered discussion about how they should proceed. Giles didn't know how long they were arguing, only after a while Hermione placed a hand on his shoulder, saying something that he didn't quite catch and then he saw the two brothers carefully lifting Helen's body, carrying it and laying it on the bed. Hermione gave them some instructions and then someone pushed him gently, turned him around and directed him to walk slowly downstairs. He sat on the sofa when someone's hand appeared in his focus reaching him a glass of brandy. He took it without a word, noticing that his own hand was shaking.

"He seems to be under some shock, probably from the _cruciatus_-curse," Giles heard Ron saying quietly.

"Maybe," George replied rather doubtfully and for a moment watched Giles drinking out of his glass and every few seconds shooting anxious, uneasy glances towards upstairs. "He'll be fine. Anyway, let's take this thing and return." He pointed at Rodolphus, then took a look at his watch. "It's almost five in the morning in London, we better get back soon, best before we attract too much attention at the ministry." Once more he turned at Giles, clumsily slapped his shoulder and said: "Don't worry, Hermione will fix her."

After that he and Ron cast some spell on Rodolphus to silence him and prevent him from struggling much, and they took him in the middle, then turned on their spots and disappeared.

Bit by bit Giles seemed to have regained the perception of his surroundings, aware now of the other persons in his apartment. The three Scoobies were standing around the sofa, talking about what would possibly happen to Rodolphus now, letting their imagination a free flow, cursing the wizard and wondering what kind of strange horrible imprisonments and punishments there might be in the wizarding world.

Giles was trying to catch any sounds, any voices from upstairs, but all he could hear was a silent murmur of Hermione every now and then, the rest was silence, no moans, no painful screams, no talking, nothing. When Hermione finally came down, Giles was almost afraid to ask, but then he saw her smile, tired, but pleased.

"It's not so bad, she's been very fortunate," Hermione said.

"Fortunate?" Xander repeated perplexed, wondering whether the witch had been there with them during the last hours, seen and heard what they did.

"Yes," she nodded, "some of the cuts are worse, that is true, some will take long to heal, but otherwise, she has no inner bleedings, no other complicated or dangerous injuries. But the wounds need to be looked after. May I stay here until tomorrow?"

"Of course," Giles answered, glad, relieved.

"Later I'll show you how to take care of it and you can do it yourself, but just in case, I'd like to stay a little longer."

Giles then sent the trio home and together with Hermione they sat on his sofa.

"What will happen to him now?" He asked.

"To Rodolphus? Well, he'll probably get a trial, which – as I predict – will be public, considering his rank among Voldemort's followers, and then he will end up in Azkaban, our prison."

"For the rest of his life?"

Hermione hesitated. "That's hard to tell. But probably yes."

"Can he do anything without his wand?"

"His wand! Right!" She slapped her forehead. "I bet we're going to get a harangue from Kingsley because of that," she lamented.

"Because of what?"

"Buffy – snapping his wand."

Giles frowned as he didn't understand what was so bad about it.

"You see, only someone from the ministry, an official is entitled to snap someone's wand, no matter what the circumstances…"

"Hm."

Hermione yawned and it occurred to Giles that it was already an early morning according to her English time. He offered her to sleep on the sofa, but she refused and conjured a mattress out of nothing, then – floating in the air – she directed it towards Giles' bedroom and gently let it fall on the ground next to the bed, in which Helen was now sleeping.

Giles watched it with widened eyes. "That's-uh… very convenient." He said.

Hermione smiled shyly, then wished him good night and walked upstairs to finally take some rest.

Giles made himself one more drink, turned the lights off except for one small lamp and stared into the fireplace, deepened in thoughts. He didn't even think of sleeping, he doubted he could close his eyes after everything that happened, after what he had heard, seen, felt…

_AN: I'd be really glad for reviews here, especially about the wand-couples-idea, it sounds logical and clear to me, but it can be (very likely ) perhaps confusing or unclear to the readers. _

_Because I know what I'm talking about, I have this idea clearly in my head, understanding it, quite thought it through, I might not see the flaws in it or in the description of it…_

_So, please if you have a few minutes, you know what to do :D_

_Thank you for staying with me this far, hopefully I'll update soon, with a longer chapter…_


	22. Chapter 22: Council matters

Chapter 22

Council matters

_AN: Next bit, less action, less romance, more background story this time… Thanks for the last reviews and the hints. The idea with the wands indeed came from the bond mentioned in the HP-books between Harry and Voldemort, whose wands shared the feather of the same phoenix, so I started to wonder what could happen if there were wands that had more in common. I realize that Voldemort and Harry are very far from being soul-mates, things they shared were mostly due to Harry's scar, but the idea behind my wand-story was that perhaps if the two wizards had wands that were made of three very same ingredients, that they too as persons would have much more in common (as compared to Harry/Voldi)… Anyway, the story was told by Hermione, hence depicting her point of view and her state of knowledge, but… who knows, the truth might be slightly different from that :) Enjoy._

Giles was sitting in one of his armchairs, drinking his brandy, his head full of thoughts. He kept hearing Hermione's words… _they were soul-mates really, with a strong, unique bond between them… destined for each other hundreds of years ago_… Of course he himself knew only two well how heavy to bear a destiny could be, but this… was something else. Helen too had been in a way "chosen" to save the world, to use her powers in the fight against the darkness, but unlike him she had been – by destiny – given a companion, a partner, someone so close to her that he could never compete with that kind of a bond – and then she lost him. Obviously this was still too painful for her, why else would she refuse to talk about it every time he tried to find out more about her past?

The phone rang. Giles cringed, then hurried to pick up. Upstairs Hermione moaned slightly as she got woken up by the unpleasant sound.

"Yes?" He whispered quietly into the phone.

"Rupert? It's Robson. I'm sorry, I know it must be late there, but I've just returned home and my assistant left me the message to call you instantly…"

"Oh, James, y-yes, yes… it's-uh… it's already-uh…" Giles' thoughts were still partly fixed upon the whole previous Helen's story. Hearing Robson's voice was like a call from a different universe now.

"Has anything happened? Are you alright? Is something with your slayer?"

"No… no, she is fine, Buffy-uh… is fine."

"Then what is it?"

"Uh-… it's already over actually. I hope." He raised his head towards his bedroom, the image of Helen's body laying on the floor popped into his mind and he felt a strange sharp pain in his stomach at the thought of it. "We had a visit here. A wizard, Rodolphus Lestrange, had been-uh… harassing us." Giles wasn't sure about how much he should give away. He trusted Robson by all means, but he also knew that the older man was very trusting, ingenuous, one might never know who he would talk about it with.

"Lestrange?" The other man asked. "I've heard that name before… hang on… there was a woman with that name, a witch, I believe she was killed in the battle."

"Yes, that-uh… is true, he was her husband."

For a short moment there was silence on the other line.

"What was he doing there?" Robson asked finally. Giles hesitated.

"He-uh… had some friends here…"

"More wizards?"

"No, no wizards, just-uh… some-uh… local… well, it doesn't matter, w-we were able to catch him with some help after all, my-uh… colleague could contact some of her friends from London, from the Ministry, I think… i-it's all sorted out now, I'm sorry that I have bothered you."

"But you haven't, at all. So you are all alright then?"

"Yes." Giles replied heavily after a short pause.

"I'm glad to hear that. Listen, I have some news myself."

"You do?" Giles has been rather hoping to end the call soon, he wasn't in the mood to talk to Robson, but suddenly he remembered that his colleague had been on some kind of a mission.

"Yes." Robson answered secretively. "A few days ago I got a call from Henry, from your father."

_Oh, not again, _Giles thought.

"He wanted to talk to me about something very delicate concerning the council. So I met him on Wednesday in a café near the Museum. He told me he had heard rumours Lord Caversham at first brought to him – you remember, I mentioned to you how I met the both of them earlier. Well, and now he's been hearing some rather disquieting things, but all very unclear, very… vague…"

"What about?"

"About some-eh… well, some alleged and possibly rather dubious connections between the council and the wizarding world."

Giles frowned. "I thought there had been these contacts as you told me – via Ministry of Magic, to-"

"Not that, that's not what he meant. He knew about that of course. But apparently he had some sketchy evidence that something else might have been going on, as I said between the council and some Death Eaters."

"Death Eaters? !"

"Yes, well your father didn't know about that, he just heard of _some wizards_, but I've found out a little more now. He asked me whether I would feel up to some investigating on my own, you know, I'm practically retired and not really warmly affiliated to the council any more and Henry said he was too busy to have a closer look at it, so…"

"Was he now?" Giles asked quietly, in a poisoned undertone. "Or did he just not want to get his hands dirty in case something went wrong?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Rupert, give the man a break, would you!" Robson said loudly and angrily. He had had enough of these remarks throughout the years, it has become very tedious, listening to Giles junior's constant hidden oblique and bitter reproaches every time their conversation turned round his father. "He simply didn't have the time. And even if it wasn't so, I would do it, I'd understand, frankly his position at the council is too delicate, whereas I don't have anything to lose!... And he looked very beaten and tired if you ask me!"

"Hm." Giles murmured spitefully.

"He gave me a name of a wizard he once was in touch with and suggested that I'd contact him at first. He is an old man, his name is Edgar Thornton and he'd been in-"

"Thornton?"

"Ah-yes… why?"

"N-nothing, I just wasn't sure I heard you right."

"Right. He had been filling the position at the Ministry of Magic just until the fall of the Ministry about one year before the Battle of Hogwarts and was a good friend of Lord Caversham. Apparently – as I understand it – he was supposed to resume his former position around last Christmas, but…" Robson made a dramatic pause. "Guess who was against it."

"Who?" Giles asked frowning.

"Well, Quentin."

"Quentin? Travers? What does he have to say about it?"

"Everything, apparently. Henry explained to me that the position at the Ministry had always been filled in agreement between the Minister and the head of the Council. The ministry would suggest a candidate, a witch or a wizard, to the Council and then they would either approve or not – and ask for someone else. Mr. Thornton had been filling the position since about 1986, then in the summer one year before the battle when the Ministry had fallen in Death Eaters' hands, the small department had been dissolved under the pretext that wizards don't maintain contacts with muggles, especially not with such who would only seek their destruction if they could. And then after the battle the position remained vacant until this Christmas, the Ministry had their hands full with putting all things back in order or at all to re-build the Ministry anew… well, whatever, like I said, around Christmas they decided to maintain it and asked our Council whether it is fine with them when Thornton would continue his work. And Quentin refused, arguing that the man is too old and not fit anymore… Which really was an outrage, you should see him, Rupert, he is indeed in his early 70ties but he's still very well, a very kind, pleasant and clever, very sophisticated man."

"So you met him then?" Giles asked.

"Yes, I contacted him as your father had suggested to me, and we met two days ago, yesterday I visited the Ministry with him and he introduced me to his successor."

"Oh? So there is one?"

"Yes. The Ministry was quite taken by surprise by Quentin's attitude and it took them a few days to come up with a new candidate… It was all very odd. The Minister finally after some personal recommendation had suggested – from what I heard he wasn't exactly happy about it but there were no other people available – a young woman, very young indeed, of 22 years, she had been doing some internship at the Ministry, her name is Rebecca Gregson. To everyone's surprise Quentin was oddly thrilled by the choice of her and approved of her immediately. This has raised your father's suspicion that there was something faulty about it – why would anyone deny the job to a man who had about fifteen years of experience to his advantage, who was old and respectable, knew the ropes very well, and instead employ a young girl, who had no idea about the work, about anything relating to the Council, who actually didn't know anything about the Watchers and the Slayer at all and basically needed to start the work from scratch?"

"Hm." Giles replied thoughtfully. "Well, it is peculiar…"

"Yes, yet at first when Henry told me I thought like – on the other hand from what I was told by Lord Caversham earlier about that department being merely a controlling body for aspiring watchers – how much work does the person there have to do really? I mean, he – or in this case she – would have to like … what… maybe four-five times a year check upon some new watchers-to-be, make sure they're not wizards, and that's pretty much it, it sounded rather dull when you asked me, like some honorary office, you know – in the manner of a Red Headed League from one of the Sherlock Holmes' cases, where the person is paid just for sitting on his chair in the office from morning till late afternoon, not doing much of anything really useful most of the time…"

"Yes?" Giles interrupted politely, as the older man seemed to have got sidetracked again.

"Hm? Oh, sorry, yes, well, Henry then told me that this Thornton sent him a letter by an owl, saying that he had some rather disturbing news concerning the council but he didn't want to discuss it with Quentin or anyone from Quentin's closest entourage. So your father called me and asked me to see the man."

"And you did."

"Yes." Robson replied meaningfully.

"And?" Giles now noticed that he actually was very tired. He wished that Robson would just tell him, yet in a way he felt he didn't even care. His worries now were elsewhere.

"He showed me some books."

"Books?" Giles asked, he didn't mean to sound irritated but he was getting more and more impatient and eager to end the tiresome call.

"Yes… Remember the story some three years ago, when some of our books, from the Council's library were reputedly destroyed in a fire?"

Giles frowned. "Yes. Several volumes had been sent to restoration to a workshop in Wales. And the place then burnt down… Wait, why do you say _reputedly_?"

"Well, that was the version we have been told by Quentin, and I must admit myself I never questioned it…"

"Yes, it was a bit odd though," Giles said thoughtfully, "I remember I wondered because I recalled that some of the lost books weren't damaged in any way and I couldn't see why they should have needed any restoration."

"Do you remember what those books were?" Robson asked him quizzically.

Giles paused for a moment, thinking. "Well, I don't remember what Quentin told us but I do know that later when I was looking for a few books on dark rituals, the librarian told me that those unfortunately were among the burnt ones… The Book of Mennius with some rituals of summoning the demons… oh, and the rituals, the-uh," Giles rubbed his forehead trying to remember, "the _Liber de Caeremoniis et Ritibus Tenebrarum_, I was looking for it some time ago, to check on something…"

"I've seen them."

"Hm?"

"I've seen them, Rupert. I know where they are, and do believe me when I tell you that they are perfectly intact."

Giles was perplexed. "What are you talking about?"

"I've seen those books yesterday. Several piles, around hundred volumes, nearly all of them dealing with really dark stuff, dark… scary magicks..."

Those words reminded Giles of something, they sounded discomfortingly familiar, but he couldn't remember where he heard them before.

"Ho-how? Where did you see them?" He asked, still not sure he understood what Robson was actually trying to say.

"Alright, let me start from the beginning…"

_A few days ago, James Robson returned home to his residence after having met with Henry Giles. He picked the phone and dialled the number on the small piece of paper that he got from his friend and former colleague. A female voice greeted him on the other line._

"_Thornton Manor. How may I help you?"_

"_Ah-hello, my name is… James Robson. I would like to speak with Mr. Edgar Thornton, ah-i-in reference to-to the Watchers Council. recommended me-"_

"_Just a moment, please, sir." He heard the woman putting the phone down, then her quick footsteps rushing away. After a minute a voice of a man sounded from the other side:_

"_Hello? Who is this?"_

_Robson cleared his throat nervously. "This is James Robson, sir, we've never met. I-I have spoken to Henry Giles whom you know a-and he gave me your number, in great confidence naturally…" Robson waited for some reaction, when none came he continued: "He asked me to contact you a-about something you had mentioned to him earlier, he is very sorry that he cannot take care of it personally, but he is very busy with some private affairs…" Again he paused expecting the man to say something, yet there was silence on the other line. "B-but I can assure you that I am as trustworthy-"_

"_I know. Henry called me an hour ago and told me you'd get in touch." Finally the acerb voice answered. "Can you meet me tomorrow at my estate?"_

"_Yes, sir." Robson replied like automatically, without thinking. The man had something very commanding, demanding in his voice that made James feel that he wouldn't like to argue with him ever. Mr. Thornton then gave him the instructions as to how to reach his house. _

_The large mansion was situated about two hours away from London, yet could easily be reached by car. As James found out later, the usual anti-muggle protections had been let down for his short visit._

_When he arrived at noon on the next day, he was shown into a small parlour. He took a seat in one of the armchairs near the fireplace, but after few seconds the door went open again, so he stood up as a tall, grey-haired man entered, wearing a grey frock coat that matched the grey colour of his eyes perfectly. His face wore a serious, stern, grim expression, but when he reached his visitor and stretched out his right hand to greet and welcome him, a warm smile actually appeared on it. _

"_Welcome, Mr. Robson, I'm very pleased to meet you. I believe you had no difficulties finding the house?"_

"_Oh, thank you, sir, and no, not at all. It is a… a beautiful place." Robson said, looking around the room._

"_Yes, this land has belonged to the Thorntons since the 14th century, although the manor as you could see is fairly modern. My great-great-grandfather had it built in 1813 after the previous house burnt down during a battle…"_

"_I see." Robson nodded and smiled politely. _

"_Oh, please, do sit down again. May I offer you something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Or perhaps something stronger? You might need it after I will have told you why you're here." Again the acerb undertone in his voice._

"_Aah-thank you, maybe later, I'm fine right now."_

"_Alright then." The man shrugged, then sat himself in a very gracious manner in the other armchair opposite to Robson._

"_So," Robson spoke nervously. "_Why_ am I actually here? Henry couldn't tell me much, you understand I am very curious." _

_Edgar Thornton took a deep breath, then began to speak in a calm voice. "I suppose he told you that I am no longer occupying the singular position of the Council matters at the Ministry."_

_Robson nodded._

"_At Christmas I was told that the Council no longer wishes me to fill that post and so I stepped back. Then after Christmas I was replaced by a young woman, Ms. Gregson." _

_Robson was listening carefully and found himself somewhat surprised and impressed that he couldn't detect any trace of anger, bitterness or grievousness in the tone of his host. He seemed to bear the loss of his former position with a dignity worthy of an English gentleman._

"_You see, after she took over I really didn't expect to get involved in the matters ever again, hence you can imagine my surprise when earlier this week Ms. Gregson paid me a visit and asked for my counsel. I imagined at first that she might have come across some difficulties with one of your Watchers, maybe discovered one of them being a wizard after all, although that almost never happened…"_

_Robson raised his eyebrows at that last remark._

"_I certainly didn't expect to be dealing with this." He suddenly got up and walked over to a small table on which some letters and a few books laid. He took one of them, an ancient looking piece, in a black leathern cover, browsed in it shortly, and when he found what he had been looking for, he returned back to his chair and offered the opened book to Robson. _

_Robson stared at it confused at first, he wondered whether this was some kind of a test, a trial he had to pass, where he'd have to say how old the book was and who had written it or something. It appeared to be from the late 15__th__ century, written in Latin. He was just about to read the first paragraph on the page, when a finger of Mr. Thornton pointed at the bottom of the page where a round library stamp had been made. Robson frowned incomprehensively and gazed at the letters in it: "_The Library of the Watchers Council. London_"._

"_I-I don't understand." He stuttered. _

"_Do you recognize this book? Can you confirm that it is the property of the Watchers Council?"_

_Robson now took a closer look at the cover and at the front page inside. _De habitu et invocatione daemonum_ written by _Franciscus Caprinus_. He remembered and stared from the front page to the face of his host._

"_How? Where did you get this? It's been lost, i-it was burnt in a fire while being restored in a workshop." _

"_Are you sure?" Edgar Thornton watched Robson's face for a moment, then rose again and brought another book from the table, opened it and handed it over to his guest. There too was the unmistakable stamp of the Council's Library. Robson examined it incredulously. He recognized the volume immediately, he had been using it many times in his early years in the Council – _De portis infernis_ by _Ianus Angelicus_. It dealt with portals to other, demonic realities, to the underworlds, and how to open or close them. At the sight of the familiar cover he remembered something. He browsed the book and finally found the chapter he'd been reading several times back then. There it was: almost satisfied he saw the small stain of coffee in the right low corner that got there on one winter morning some thirty years ago when he fell asleep over the book and by waking up overthrew his half full cup._

"_You recognize it? Is it one of your books?"_

"_Yes, sir, this is definitely one of them… The other one most likely as well, it has the stamp inside, but… how did you get them? They were supposed to have been destroyed, in the fire." Robson shook his head. "We were told that these volumes had been sent to a workshop to get restored and then there had been an accident there and they all burnt with the place." He repeated._

"_When was it?"_

"_Ah-… some three years ago I guess."_

_Mr. Thornton's face became even more earnest now. "Do you know how many books there had been? How many were lost?"_

_Robson furrowed his brows, trying to remember. "Well, I'm not sure, some were reported missing only later, but… Quentin spoke of fifteen, maybe twenty pieces at that time."_

_Thornton sighed heavily, then said in a slow voice: "We have found… one hundred and six books with the said stamp of the Watchers Council."_

"_What?" Robson stared at the man with opened mouth._

"_They were at the Ministry. They still are."_

"_But- I don't understand. How did they get there? Did you steal them?" Robson asked somewhat naïve. Some horrid foreboding was already forming up inside of his mind, but he didn't want to believe it just yet, so the clumsy accusation slipped his tongue, although he sensed it was groundless. He quickly covered his mouth and felt embarrassed, but there was no outrage in Edgar Thornton's eyes, in fact he looked at him sadly, sympathetically, almost as if he pitied him. _

_He did not answer the last question, but began instead to explain: "After the battle of Hogwarts vast estates and bequests of the Death Eaters, of the followers of the Dark Lord were left behind, full of things, items of dark magic, books, objects with dangerous contents. The aurors, or rather the few of them who were left – who survived the battle – began to search the possessions and the manors and estates of these people in order to find and confiscate every single piece that was in any way, even supposedly, connected with the dark arts. It took them several months to go through it all and by the time they were finished, they had collected thousands, tens of thousands of items, huge piles, mountains of books, some of them were entirely unknown even to old and experienced wizards among us. All these things were stored at the Ministry and were to be investigated properly and carefully by the aurors, as many of the pieces seemed to be very rare and no one was clear upon how they work or what threat they'd pose to a wizard. Afterwards a special committee would decide what was to happen with them, whether or how at all they should be destroyed. Books, as they don't pose any immediate threat, were left aside for the time being, so we only got to them now."_

_Thornton noticed the strange look on Robson's face. "Are you quite alright, sir?"_

"_Yes-ah… I'd like to have something to drink if it's not too much to ask."_

"_Of course. Shall I ring for some tea or coffee?"_

"_If you don't mind I'd rather have a glass of that Scotch you have over there." He pointed towards the bar underneath the window. Thornton got up again, made a glass for his guest, then returned back to his seat._

"_Thank you." Robson took a long sip out of his glass while Thornton waited patiently. "Alright. Let me get this straight. You are telling me that you have found the books from the Council's Library, the very books that according to Travers perished in the fire – that you have found them among the bequests of some dark wizards." Robson looked at him waiting for a nod._

"_Well, I haven't found them. Our aurors did. As I said the books were the last things to be examined. Apparently last week someone brought these books that had the Council stamp in them along to Ms. Gregson's office, presuming she would know how to deal with them."_

"_Ok. Once more then: You mean to tell me that those books did not go down in that fire." Robson said once again as if he wanted to make sure that he conceived this plain fact._

"_Obviously. They are all in a very good state."_

"_That means then that Quentin was wrong. The books are saved then."_

"_Yes, they are." Thornton replied slowly, he didn't share the content enthusiastic expression that appeared on Robson's face for a short moment now._

"_But that's marvellous!"_

"_If you say so… It however raises the question how did these hundred volumes get in the hands of the Death Eaters." He said gloomily. _

_Robson frowned. Somewhere in some deep dark corner of his mind he felt he might know the answer already but didn't want to think of it, the other part of his mind was stubbornly refusing to admit even the possibility._

"_You said those books were sent away to be restored, is that correct?"_

"_Yes." Robson replied cautiously._

"_Hm." Thornton nodded thoughtfully. "You see, sir, I've seen them, I haven't examined every single one of them I admit, yet those which I did have a closer look at did appear to be in a flawless condition. They haven't been restored and they don't need to be restored, with the exception of perhaps one or two volumes those books are very well preserved for their age."_

_Robson did not answer._

"_Sir, if you allow me, I would like to take you to the Ministry, to our Council department, where you can see them with your own eyes… Tomorrow perhaps? Can you meet me in London?"_

_Robson returned to London about three hours later, but instead of going home he headed towards the Council's Headquarters under the pretext of wanting to do some hobby-reading. He knew the Council's Library usually kept records of every single book that left the house for any reason – like for example for being sent to a workshop and getting restored. Those records were kept in the large reading room, accessible to everyone, as it could easily happen that one was looking for a book and it wasn't there, then one could check the said records and see whether it's been temporarily sent away and thus unavailable. He easily found the records from three years ago and indeed soon came across the lost books. As he had recalled, nineteen volumes had been listed as leaving the library in February 1998, though it appeared that they had been written down only later. Robson carefully read the entries that were saying that the books had been sent to a workshop in a village in Wales, Croes-goch. He frowned and began to browse the book, then took out the previous records to see whether any other books from the library had been sent there in the past. His unclear suspicion got confirmed when he couldn't find any other mention of a workshop in Croes-goch. All previous restorations seemed to have been handled by a renowned workshop in Cardiff, one he knew of himself very well. Why then would the Council send these books, these very delicate pieces to an obscure place, a place they had no experience with – instead of choosing the old reliable one? Or was it precisely because those books were of such sensitive nature that the Council didn't want them getting repaired in a workshop where they could possibly get lost or mixed up with other books? _Could be_… He decided to make one last phone call and then just let it be and wait and see what tomorrow would bring…_

_On the next day James Robson found himself sitting on a chair in a spacious office room at the Ministry of Magic, quite speechless, staring at the hundred and four books piled underneath a fake window. He recognized a few of them, most of them he didn't, but it was obvious what these books had in common: they were all dealing with rituals of dark magicks such as resurrections, demon-summoning, they contented dark curses of the most sinister kind, instructions as to how one could paralyse any opponent and so on. The Council kept those books guarded very closely, they were to be used only and strictly in the library, no one was allowed to borrow them even over night. It occurred to Robson now that giving them away for restoration, letting them out of house had actually been quite an odd idea, not really in accord with the council's policy of secrecy and precaution. On the other hand – if they really needed to be restored…. _But that's the point!_ A voice sounded in his head now. His eyes wandered up and down the piled books. _There isn't a single book among them that would appear to be damaged or in the need of any repairs_, he thought, _besides_…_

"_There is no workshop in Croesgoch." He finally said in a resigned, beaten voice._

"_I'm sorry?" The young woman, Rebecca Gregson asked politely and Edgar Thornton frowned at him._

"_There is no workshop for book restoration in Croesgoch. There never has been." He repeated, raising his head from the ancient volumes and looking now directly at the grey-haired wizard. He seemed to have understood. Rebecca still looked puzzled from the one to the other._

"_Yesterday after I left your house, I went to the Council's Library. The books were supposed to be restored in a workshop in Croesgoch, instead in Cardiff where the Council usually would send them to. But I did a bit of research… there… is… no… such… workshop… in Croesgoch." He said once again as if he still couldn't believe what that all meant._

When Robson finished telling his story to Giles on the phone, there was grave silence on the other line.

"It seems," Robson began in a conspiratorial whisper, as if he was fearing to say out loud what he was about to say, "those books never were sent for restoration."

"Yes, thank you, I've guessed that by now." Giles replied. "So, we've been lied to."

"But why?"

"Well, there are two explanations, I'd say. Either those books disappeared or rather were stolen, without the knowledge of the Council – of Quentin and his suite – which might explain the belated entry in the records, and they felt simply too embarrassed to admit it, yet considering all the security measures there had been put on the headquarters _and_ on the library especially – I find that rather hard to accept… or…" Giles paused.

"I cannot believe it." Robson said in a heavy voice.

"Or…," Giles continued coldly, "they had given those books away… voluntarily. Maybe in an exchange for something."

"In exchange for what?"

"I have no idea." Giles said and sounded now exhausted. "Have you talk to my father yet?"

"Yes, briefly. When I found the message you left with my secretary I thought at first it was from him, it only said to call Mr. Giles. He then told me it wasn't him… I'm about to meet him later… he-ah… is sending his best regards to you."

"Hm," Giles gave a sarcastic snort, "for whatever that's worth," he murmured.

Robson sighed on the other line.

"What do you intend to do about it?"

"I honestly don't know." The older man said quietly, almost desperately. "I can hardly confront Quentin with it directly now, can I?"

Giles wanted to say something but Helen's whimper from upstairs followed by Hermione's calming voice caught his ears.

"Uh-… no-uh, I suppose that-uh… wouldn't be the best idea."

"I should think not."

"I-I have to go now, I'm sorry. Could you call me later, when there is anything new? I'd like to-to think about it in peace for a while."

"Of course, Rupert. Take care… Oh, and how is the witch doing by the way? Is she still there teaching at your high school?"

"She-uh… is doing alright." He said thoughtfully, raising his head again towards the staircase. _I hope_.

"That's good. Maybe you can talk to her about it… what's her name again?"

"Uh-listen, I must hang up now, I'll talk to you later, bye now."

"Good bye."

Giles walked upstairs with fast footsteps. There Helen was laying on his bed, her eyes closed, her arms and legs were twitching every few seconds and she was moaning quietly. Hermione sat on the edge of the bed, whispering to her: "It will be over soon, just try to think of something else."

She noticed Giles and gave him a reassuring look. "It's alright, it's just the Skele-Gro. The bones are growing and re-adjusting, it is painful, but it should be over in a few hours."

Helen groaned again and Giles came closer. "Can't you… is there nothing you could give her, some painkillers or… I have some pills downstairs that would help."

Hermione shook her head. "No, I'm sorry, those can't be mixed with the potion, Helen would tell you. I'm afraid there is nothing we can do but wait…"

They were watching Helen in silence for a moment, the twitching in her legs seemed to have stopped and after a while she fell asleep again.

"You should get some sleep too, sir, you look very tired yourself." Hermione spoke.

"Hm? Oh, don't worry." Giles smiled at the young woman.

"I'll take care of her. For now there's nothing to do." She said encouragingly and Giles finally nodded and turned around to leave when he thought of something.

"Does the name _Thornton_ mean anything to you?" He asked.

"Yes," Hermione replied in surprise. "Helen used the name while teaching at Hogwarts, it was safer for her I suppose… It's her mother's maiden name. The Thorntons are an old wizarding family… purebloods… But they keep mostly to themselves. Why do you ask?"

"Do you know an Edgar Thornton?"

She frowned. "No, I don't think so. Must be some relative of hers I guess. But she doesn't maintain any relations with the family as far as I know."

Giles stared thoughtfully at the edge of his bed for a moment. "Thank you, I-uhm… I'll be downstairs then, if you need me."

"Good night." Hermione nodded friendly.

Downstairs Giles made himself as comfortable as possible on his sofa and after a moment he fell into a deep sleep at last. The loud sound of his doorbell woke him up in the morning.

It was George Weasley.

"Good morning, I'm sorry, I didn't want to just apparate… I thought you might not like it, persons appearing out of nowhere," he apologized as he noticed Giles' tired expression.

Hermione soon came downstairs too and joined them in the kitchen where Giles was preparing some breakfast.

"You will not believe whom I met at the Ministry earlier," George said looking from Hermione to Giles. "This might interest you as well, Mr. Giles."

Giles raised his head.

"I had been talking to Kingsley for a while and then in the lift I ran into… Rebecca!"

Hermione gave him a blank look, she didn't know who he was talking about, but Giles sat up at the mention of the name.

"Percy's girlfriend! Remember? Christmas?"

"Oh, right, sure, Rebecca Gregson, yes, I know her, we spent a few days working together last summer during my internship at the Ministry, in the International Cooperation."

"Yeah, whatever. But guess what she's doing _now_!" George said dramatically.

"Taking charge of the Council matters I suppose." Giles said calmly and at the sight of George's perplexed and then disappointed expression he suppressed a smile.

"How did you do that? ! Is that some kind of a-a Watcher-thing?" George asked slightly irritated.

"No," Giles replied amused and took a sip out of his tea-cup.

"Well?" George asked expectantly. "How did you know about it? Does Helen know as well?" He asked annoyed.

At the mention of Helen's name Giles' face became more earnest again.

"No-uh… Or I don't know. But-uh… I've found out only last night. A friend called me… So you know her then, this-uh… Rebecca?"

"Yes. She is going out with my brother Percy, don't ask me _why_," George replied, shaking his head, still wondering how anyone could bear being together with Percy. "And apparently he got her the job."

"How?" Hermione asked.

"Kingsley happened to mention to Percy's boss that they were looking for someone for that post and he was rather desperate because he didn't know of anyone and so Percy hurried to promote his _pumpkin_," George said with a clear disgust in the last word. "Rebecca told me she actually didn't believe they'd accept her, but… well, stranger things have happened in the world I'd say."

"Yes. Take appointing you to provide an anti-muggle internet security for the Ministry for instance," Hermione said in a contemplative tone.

"I don't see how that's-" George wanted to object.

"Was she working on a Sunday?" Hermione wondered.

"Yes, I found that odd too, I told her so, she said she had some things to do, she seemed quite pleased to be busy actually, probably happy she doesn't have to come over to the Burrow for lunch… or maybe she was just avoiding Percy," George grinned, then noticed Hermione's glare. "But then, they really seem to be made for each other, take Percy aside I've never seen anyone so enthused about having loads of work and spending their weekends at the office… She said she had been fearing that it would be boring there, and it was in the first days, she literally had nothing to do, no paperwork, just staring out of the window, reading the Prophet and the Quibbler, but apparently it has changed." George leant back on his chair comfortably.

"Do you know what changed? Did she mention anything?" Giles asked.

"No. I didn't ask, you see whenever I meet such work-enthusiasts I try to forego them as fast as possible… in case it's infectious." George shrugged and Hermione rolled her eyes.

After breakfast Hermione left them and went upstairs to check on Helen and to re-dress her wounds. Giles and George remained sitting at the counter of Giles' kitchen, an awkward silence between them.

"You have a nice house," George said. "I like your fireplace, it's very classy."

Giles furrowed his brows, not sure what or whether at all to reply. "Uhm-thanks."

"Yes, and it looks very spacious too."

Giles looked at him somewhat bewildered.

"Very visitors-friendly I mean. Should you ever decide to install a floo-connection it would surely be very cosy in there for your guests," George said a little nervously. He wasn't quite sure how to talk to the man, who was a complete stranger to him. He wasn't a wizard, yet neither was he an ordinary muggle – being a Watcher and all that. And he was involved with Helen who was his good friend and whom he cared for very much.

Giles nodded politely and smiled a little tensed.

Again silence, then suddenly George leant over towards Giles. "I hope, Hermione didn't scare you off yesterday, with that stuff about Snape," he said in a quiet voice.

Giles raised his eyes from his cup at the young man, but didn't answer. For a second there he wondered whether the red-haired wizard could read his mind.

"It's not all that simple." When Giles still wasn't responding, George sighed heavily: "You should have heard it from Helen, not from us."

Giles laughed a little. "She-uh… she doesn't…"

"Talk?" George finished the sentence and gave Giles a knowing look. "When it comes to Helen, it's a good sign, believe me," he added, nodding his head wisely.

Giles frowned at the remark he didn't understand.

"But, I guess she'll have to, once she's awake again, she'll explain, better than me and certainly better than our gingerhead-know-it-all."

"Miss Granger seems very-uh…"

"Common, say it," George encouraged him, "say it – narrow-minded? Blinkered?"

Giles threw a stolen look towards his bedroom where Hermione was, but didn't say anything.

"Well, she sometimes has trouble accepting other peoples' different opinions. Or allowing them to have such." George said rolling his eyes. "They argued about it so often, and she just couldn't let go of it. It was so irksome… As Helen pointed out to me, she obviously did understand Hermione's obstinate attitude: you know, Hermione is muggle-born, her parents are muggles, dentists actually, so to her magic is a gift, something very precious, a… a very special distinction that one has been chosen for. To Hermione it means responsibility that comes with it, but mostly it's an honour, a privilege, and you have to make the best out of it. Helen understood that thinking, and respected it, she just doesn't see it that way herself… after everything that happened."

Giles thoughtfully drank his tea. In a way it sounded familiar to him and he briefly recalled the disappointing and sobering talk that he had had with his grandmother shortly after the misfortunate watcher's exam. He had thought she would understand, that she would actually praise him for leaving the Council after that… yet instead she held a sermon to him. _It's a sacred calling, Rupert, it's an honour, others would give everything to be in your place_…

Later around noon Willow and Xander came, Buffy went to visit Angel, he was still recovering from the injuries he had suffered during the ritual that was supposed to restore Drusilla's health.

Xander reminded them that they needed yet to take care of Snyder and so George left with him to pay the principal an invisible visit and do some "editing" to his memories of the last few hours. In the meantime Hermione showed and explained to Giles in detail how he was to take care of Helen's wounds in the next few days. Helen was still half sleeping, half awake, she seemed to have a slight fever, Hermione said that it was probably caused by the Skele-Gro and should fade away soon.

George and Xander returned and all five of them sat down to a cup of tea that Giles made for them.

"Where is your blond friend?" George asked Willow. "_The Slayer_?" He added theatrically.

"She's with her boyfriend." Willow said and Xander made a strange snorty noise.

"Oh, Hermione, I meant to tell you, did you see that yesterday? No, you probably didn't as you were laying around lazily on the floor, knocked out by Lestrange… Rodolphus attacked her, Buffy, several times, he shot perhaps four or five curses at her, the killing curse too, nothing worked. You should have seen his face, it was priceless."

"What do you mean nothing worked?"

"He didn't harm her. He tried… hang on, I remember, he did _cruciatus_, then the stunning spell, then something I've never heard of, like… _excutus_ or so… and then the killing curse, twice, but his wand only shot blue sparkles and none of the spells really hit her."

They all now looked at Hermione as if expecting for her to have an answer. Hermione just stared into the fireplace, tipping her finger on her lips.

"And," George continued in a challenging, yet amused undertone, "how do you explain that the protection spells didn't work? I mean – it was Ron who cast them so one should not expect too much, but… _you_ obviously did trust him."

Hermione gave him an annoyed glance, then stood up.

"A-ha! Admit it! You don't have the foggiest idea," George said triumphantly, teasing.

She looked at them, shook her head and said resigned: "I don't."

_AN: Thank you for reading this far, please if you can spare a few moments, I'd be happy to read any comments, reviews! Some cuddling and snuggling should come soon in the coming chapters ;) _


	23. Chapter 23: The fever

Chapter 23

The fever

_AN: Thanks for the last reviews, very much appreciated! As I wrote in a reply to one of them, I originally intended this to be a pure, simple romance story, yet somehow I got quite entangled in all the little side-stories (like the messy wand-magic on Hellmouth or the Council-Death-Eaters affair) that were originally supposed to just offer some background and merely serve the romance-part, but somehow have developed by now to be quite large and important, so that it takes longer to think them through properly for them to make sense, and I have to write on many fronts now, work on many ends. Hence I'm sorry if I won't unfold these things in every single chapter, but instead taking it step by step. Still, I hope you'll enjoy…_

Giles watched the glum face of the young witch, who kept pacing up and down in front of his fireplace, then he cleared his throat: "Uhm, I-uh… might have an answer, or at least some parts of it."

They all turned at him curiously and Giles told them about his short conversation with Angel that he had on Christmas, when the vampire had pointed out that the wand magic would not work here, on the Hellmouth the way it did elsewhere, but that he didn't know anything precise.

Hermione sat down again, deepened in thoughts.

"Let me sum it up," she spoke after a while, "you say that Helen couldn't attack any vampires or… what was the other thing… this kraken from the Hellmouth… but you actually saw her doing other spells? Spells that worked?"

"Yes," Giles said and gave a short, but firm nod. "She saved my life actually, last year… Angel said your magic wouldn't work against demons or-or wouldn't work the way it should, here."

"Hm, yet Rodolphus couldn't attack Buffy for some reason either," Hermione said thoughtfully.

George grinned. "Yeah, perhaps she's a demon too," he replied jokingly and they all glared at him, clearly not amused by his remark.

"_Confundo!_"

George was suddenly hit by a light flash from Hermione's wand and his eyes became blank for a short moment, before he sat up and looked around him, entirely confused.

"W-where am I?" He frowned at Xander and Willow, while Hermione was watching him carefully. "What-… how…?"

"_Finite_." Hermione waved her wand once again and George shrugged immediately.

"What was I saying?" He frowned and shook his head.

"Hm, that seems to work…" Hermione murmured to herself. "Hang on," suddenly she turned at George. "Attack me."

"What?" George looked at her frowning.

"Attack me, some offensive spell, punch me, whatever."

"Are you really saying this? I mean, not that I'm complaining, I'll do it with the greatest pleasure you should know, but…"

"George," Hermione interrupted him impatiently, "just… do it, any spell, stunning spell, come on, we need to check."

"Right, you don't have to ask me twice, but… just for the record," he turned at the other three in the room, "you heard her, right? She asked for it." He shrugged, then pulled out his wand, while Hermione held hers ready. George took a deep breath, then grinned, as if he was about to experience something extremely pleasant and wanted to saviour the moment – he smacked blissfully.

Then out of nothing, he made a fast movement with his wand and shouted "_Stupefy_". Giles, Willow and Xander jumped at their seats, yet Hermione's reflexes were excellent, she immediately yelled "_Protego_" back at George. But her wand let off a string of blue sparks and instead of shielding the attacking spell Hermione found herself knocked out, fell on the floor, hit by George's spell. He grinned satisfied, watched her for a moment lying there motionless, then murmured "_Finite_" and went over to help her get up.

"I must say I did enjoy this. Shall we try again? Perhaps something different now? What about the vomiting spell?"

"Hhh, you better not," Giles cleared his throat, "I had the carpet dry-cleaned."

"So, what's with the blue sparks then?" George asked Hermione seriously. "You should have blocked me with your spell, judging by your speed…"

"Hm, it's very odd," Hermione replied slowly.

For the next half an hour George and Hermione were fighting each other in the corner of Giles' apartment, trying to figure out what was wrong with their magic here. Willow and Xander were watching them in fascination, while Giles was browsing some of his books, looking for something about the history of Sunnydale, trying to ignore the sound of his hallstand and other objects being repeatedly overthrown or smashed by the two fighting wizards, always followed by a quick "_Reparo_" from either George or Hermione.

"Boy, why didn't I masquerade for a wizard on Halloween? It would have been so much cooler," Xander said dreamily after George had knocked out Hermione for what seemed to be the twentieth time.

"Yeah," Willow murmured admiringly.

"So? What do you say?" George asked Hermione when they returned to the sofa and took seats again, both slightly out of their breaths. "I think it's fair to state that Helen isn't the problem."

"No, it seems not," Hermione replied and Giles raised his eyes from a book to look at them. "It appears that protection spells are of no use at all. You could attack me with any spell, and I could attack you back, but none of us could… parry… no defensive magic seems to be working."

"That might explain why the protection spells Helen had placed around here and the school didn't stop Lestrange from entering," Giles noted.

"Yet according to Ms. McGregor you can't attack vampires either," Willow said.

"Yeah. What about muggles?" George asked curiously and threw a look as innocent as he could manage at the three of them, then his eyes stopped at Xander.

"What?" Xander asked suspiciously.

George gave Hermione a mischievous look as if asking for a silent permission, yet it didn't escape Giles.

"Uhm, I can assure you the magic works on us, I mean-uh… on-uh… muggles. As the back of my head would testify if it could speak," he said, scratching his head to find the bump that was still there after Rodolphus had knocked him off the stairs with a spell the previous day.

"Yes, and poor Xander too had been the target back in the library," Willow seconded.

"Alright. So what about vampires then? Or other demons? We ought to check…," Hermione said thoughtfully playing with her wand.

"Yeah, do you have any here? Any volunteers who'd like to try?" George looked at them playing earnest. "I mean, we're _not_ paying anything, it would be just an honorary performance – getting attacked, or possibly killed…"

"Yeah, what about Angel?" Xander suggested eagerly. "He wouldn't mind if it's for a good cause… Autch!" Willow punched him in his side.

"Or… why don't we let him sire Cordelia first and try _her_ then?" Willow asked in an innocent voice.

Giles frowned at the both of them and their strange exchange, feeling like he must have missed something there. "I don't think we should bother him right now, he probably still has some recovering to do," he murmured, then turned at Hermione. "But if you like, you can talk to him later… Though-uh… I must warn you he's not very-uh…"

"Alive?" Xander jumped in.

"… chatty," Giles finished, throwing yet another annoyed glare at the boy.

Hermione agreed to let the affair rest for a while, but she asked Giles for some books on Sunnydale's past, she wanted to do some research on her own as the whole matter with the messed magic caught her curiosity. She then went upstairs to see how Helen was doing.

Xander and Willow had left to go home, it was already late afternoon. Giles and George sat on the sofa, trying to have a conversation again, when something occurred to Giles. He remembered Ron's words from the day before and turned now at George.

"Do you know where the book is now?"

"I'm sorry?" George did not understand.

"Uhm, sorry, the book your brother was talking about yesterday, the one where the ritual was from… that she-uh," he paused and nodded with his head towards his bedroom upstairs, "that she tried to perform to lose her magic… do you know what happened to it? To the book?"

George raised his brows wondering, as he never had thought about that. "I don't know, I haven't seen it since then. It's probably still in Helen's possession, I'd suppose."

"Hm," Giles replied, then went silent, something else occupying his mind ever since he had heard George saying that odd sentence about Helen and the risk she took when performing the ritual that might have killed her… _perhaps that was her choice too_…. He blushed a little, not sure whether he should ask nor whether he wanted to hear the answer, especially because it meant he would again hear it from someone else, not from the one that should say it.

"What did you mean exactly," he found himself speaking despite his inner restraints, "when you said that it _might have been her choice too?_"

George stiffened a little, he decided to pretend that he didn't know what Giles was talking about, but of all things he was, he never was a good, convincing liar, so he gave up almost immediately and sighed resigned. "Forget that I said that. I shouldn't have, but Hermione was driving me crazy… Helen will kill me when she finds out I said it… maybe I should turn myself into a demon, that way she won't be able to," he murmured.

Giles wanted to reply that that might not be the best option when he noticed Hermione descending the stairs, her expression a little concerned.

"Is anything wrong?" He asked getting up.

"No, no," she smiled uneasy. "It's only the fever, it's…"

"Shouldn't it be over by now?"

"Yes, I checked, the bones are all right by now, but… somehow she's still feverish." Giles looked worried, so she hurried to say, "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. After all what she's been through it might be perfectly normal. Let's wait couple of more hours, then we'll see if it's getting better."

"Right." They all sat back down.

"By the way, how did the things go at the Ministry? What happened to Rodolphus? And what did Kingsley say about the wand?" Hermione asked George.

"Well, he said, and I quote him – _serves him right, bloody bastard_, of course in the official version he was more like – _boys, I must strongly reprehend your actions, you realize that is not the proper way it should have been, blah-blah-blah, you acted in a deliberate contradiction with the Ministry's regulations and against article Merlin-knows-which of the wizarding law issued in the Middle Ages by Grampol the Greedy... I won't however charge you because of the special circumstances… blah-blah… I hope it will be a lesson to you nevertheless," _George dropped the very good imitation of Kingsley's deep voice and continued, "…. and Lestrange was taken to Azkaban, they will decide what should happen with him."

"Won't he get a trial?"

"I don't know. Yeah, probably, though he certainly doesn't deserve any, I mean, what's there to judge? It's quite clear what should happen to such a person, isn't it? A trial? A waste of time in his case, when you ask me."

"But surely he should get the chance to say something," Hermione objected.

"Why? In his defence? What's there to defend? It will only give him a platform to speak of his perverted kinky opinions! Who cares? !"

Hermione looked at him shocked. "Everyone deserves a trial, George, where would we be otherwise? We would have some kind of anarchy, of…"

George rolled his eyes. "There she goes again. Yeah, Hermione, you're right," he said bored, "Helen would probably even agree with you, I know. Well, we'll see what happens. Either way he'll end up in Azkaban, the question is rather under what conditions…"

"What does that mean?"

"Kingsley said something about changing his memories," he replied matter-of-factly.

"What? !"

"They might be considering some editing to his memory, in case he should escape again, they've learned from the last time – he did escape once before – so it might be wise to strip his memories a bit, you know… should he somehow manage again to flee, then he wouldn't be much of a threat or start a vengeance trip again."

"They can't do that," Hermione said a bit outraged. "I know he's a murderer and all that, but tempering with his memory, that's like… changing his personality… like… making him into someone else…"

"Yes? And tell me once again why that's bad in case of someone like Lestrange? I mean – he certainly can't get any more unholy!"

"That's not the point of who he is! It's not right!"

"Yeah, Hermione, feel free to go and talk to Kingsley about it and your conception of right and wrong."

Giles let them argue for a good while. He was considering telling them about his previous talk with Robson and his discovery that the Death Eaters had access to some of the most dangerous rituals there existed, but listening to Hermione he got the impression that the young witch might get too "operational" about it, might want to act in some way immediately, want to "correct" the clearly wrong situation. And though he saw that she was a person with a strong sense for rightness and justice, he felt that he didn't want any rushed decisions just yet, he needed to think about it, to look at it from every ankle, there was too much at the stake. He was looking forward to discussing it with Helen, once she'd be fit again. What bothered him most was that he had no idea whatsoever about what Quentin could have acquired in return for letting those books away_. And did he get paid off at all? After all the Death Eaters were defeated as was their leader… But how could he, the Head of the Council allow such an iniquity? It was against all-, against everything they, the Watchers, had sworn to follow… Of course he didn't know what exactly the Death Eaters needed the books for, but really – given the topics in them it wasn't hard to guess, surely they didn't want the books about summoning demons just to conjure up some pets to guard their manors and bark at unwelcome visitors… Especially the timing of the disappearance of the books screamed that they were planning to use the content of the books in the battle of Hogwarts… which they lost nevertheless… _Giles let his thoughts a free flow while George and Hermione continued their argument about the right treatment of convicted wizarding prisoners. Has Robson already talked to his father? And what would Giles senior do? For a very short moment Giles found himself wishing he could be there, that he could sit down on the sofa in the living room of their house near London, and at a glass of brandy discuss their options with his father. But the wish was gone as quickly as it came and the bitter realization of the truth why that would never happen hit him… _He made it perfectly clear where his loyalties lie then, twenty-five years ago… It's foolish to think he would allow Robson to use the information against Quentin… Yet, why at all then did he send him to see this wizard, this Thornton? Was it simply to find out what they knew and then to warn Travers? And this Thornton? How was he connected to Helen? Who was he? Did she know him? _His thoughts kept jumping from one subject to another in an endless chain, before finally George's voice yanked him out of it.

"Right, Hermione, I'm bored now. I'm going to say good bye to Helen, then I'll leave you to tantalize Mr. Giles, hopefully he's a better match for you." He got up and moved towards the staircase.

"I simply-" Hermione started, but George raised his hands in front of him and gave her a strict look, she went silent and he walked up the stairs.

Hermione turned to Giles who still seemed deepened in his own thoughts. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Giles, that wasn't very kind of us, arguing and ignoring you…"

He looked up and smiled at her, then said: "It's alright-"

"Hermione!" They both raised their heads alarmed at George's voice coming from above them, "Hermione, there is something terribly wrong here!"

They jumped to their feet and hurried upstairs. George was bowing over Helen's face, which was pink now and covered with hundreds of sweat-drops. She was shivering a little and breathing heavily.

"You said she had no inner bleedings," George looked at Hermione, scared.

Hermione and Giles came closer. "She hasn't," Hermione replied frowning and touched Helen's forehead that felt very hot.

"Then what's this?" George said and with a finger he softly ran over Helen's lips, a trace of blood remained on it. Only now they noticed the small red dot in the corner of her mouth. As Helen coughed weakly and turned her head a little, they spotted a few tiny red stains on the pillow.

Hermione's eyes widened. "I checked! Twice, yesterday after you left, she had no inner bleedings, I swear!"

"Well, she has now!"

"Let me see," Hermione quickly recovered from the initial shock, pulled out her wand and pushed George aside.

"What are you doing?" Giles asked concerned. He still felt a little uncomfortable with all the magic around, he didn't quite trust it the way he would want to, especially the experience of the past few days did not exactly contribute to making him a wand-magic-enthusiast.

"There's a spell, I must check again." Hermione said impatiently, then pointed the wand in the air over Helen and began to murmur something in Latin. A thin string of golden powder conjured up from her wand as she was speaking and it spread itself over Helen's body slowly. Giles had no idea how or what actually it was supposed to work, but Hermione soon spoke: "It's the lungs," she watched the powder flowing and assembling into odd constellations, "… and the stomach..." She added in a small voice, "… and the liver…"

The two men stared at her in disbelief, Giles was fighting the urge to grab the phone immediately and call the emergency while George was scratching his head nervously.

Hermione for a moment seemed speechless. "I don't understand," she said finally, "I did this yesterday after we had caught Rodolphus, I examined her properly, and later again, there were no inner injuries apart from the fractures that are healed now, no bleedings, nothing…"

"So, maybe we best take her to a hospital," Giles suggested.

Hermione and George exchanged glum looks.

"Unless Hermione is entirely clueless, I would strongly advise against doing so, sir," George said. "Helen in a hospital," he continued in a serious voice, "is something you don't want to see. Or hear, trust me." He then turned at Hermione expectantly.

She was still staring perplexed at the blood drops.

"Hermione!"

"Hm?" She shrugged.

"You can stop the bleeding, can't you?"

"Oh, yes, yes, where is my bag?" She turned around, but Giles was already handing her the small black purse.

"What are you going to do?" Giles asked her.

"I've got a potion here that will stop the bleedings, I took two phials for just a case like this." She rummaged in her purse, then took out a small dark blue bottle, then looked up at Giles. "Can you help me hold her up? She must drink it."

Giles came closer and bowed down to support Helen's head while Hermione put the tiny bottle on her lips and made her drink half of its content.

She seemed to be there with her mind, she kept looking from one to the other, then asked in a heavy whisper: "What… happened… to Rodolphus?"

"He's caught," Giles replied in a calm, comforting voice, "you don't have to worry about it anymore." Despite the fact that her inner state didn't improve, he felt somewhat relieved at hearing her voice, which wasn't muttering some incoherent, odd things as before, but clearly addressed them.

"I…," she began again, but it was obvious that every word was costing her a great effort, "… I'm sorry… that he… hurt you…"

George rolled his eyes at the words, but Giles smiled at her and shook his head to stop her. She then closed her eyes again and seemed to have fallen asleep.

"How long do you think will it take for the potion to work?" George asked Hermione.

"I'm not sure, I don't know exactly. It should stop the bleeding within few hours I suppose, I guess she drank enough of it now so that there should be an improvement soon… I hope," Hermione said and gave Helen an anxious look. "I just don't understand how it happened," she whispered. "Like I said, I did check twice, I did the same spell, there was nothing, she was perfectly alright," she spoke agitated.

"Maybe-uh… it was something Lestrange did? Some-uh… spell that would perhaps unfold only later?" Giles spoke, not really having an idea whether there were such spells.

"Hm," Hermione frowned doubtfully, "I can't think of any such… it is peculiar."

They returned downstairs. George decided to stay and have a look around Helen's house and perhaps do some repairs, try to clear the chaos and the reminders of Rodolphus' destruction-trip. Hermione suggested that the both of them, she and Giles should meanwhile get some sleep.

Several hours later, it must have been an early morning, the muffled voices of George and Hermione woke Giles up.

"She's not getting any better," he heard Hermione saying.

"I can see that… Merlin, she's so hot!" George said.

Hermione gave him an appalled look.

"Oh, you know what I mean! You could make pancakes on her forehead! Or scrambled eggs… Man, I'm hungry!... Are you sure you gave her enough of that potion? It didn't seem like she drank much of it," George whispered.

Giles got up and walked upstairs, only to see that Helen's condition didn't change, in fact he thought she looked even worse than before.

"How is she?" He asked quietly.

Hermione turned at him, her face worried. "There is no change, I'm afraid… It might be that the potion I gave her wasn't enough to stop a bleeding of this extent."

"Well then give her some more," George urged her and hesitantly Hermione took the half empty phial from the bed-side table and once more they made Helen drink the rest of it.

The hours were passing, yet Helen's state wasn't improving, she was falling in and out of sleep, occasionally murmuring the same senseless stuff from before, mentioning some green eyes that weren't hers. Then she seemed to have cooled off a little, calmed down and they all began to feel slightly easier when suddenly a severe cough attack overcame her and she was coughing out blood. Giles hurried to her to help her sit up.

"She's choking on her own blood, Hermione!" George said.

Hermione looked at them horrified.

"Do something!" George yelled as the coughing was getting more fierce and Helen seemed to be gasping for breath.

"I-I'm not sure what…" Hermione appeared desperate. George grabbed her purse and pulled out another phial of the potion they had given her before.

"Give her more, it looked like it was helping before! Maybe she just needs a proper dose."

Helen raised her shaky hand and pointed at the small phial in George's hand, fighting with the coughs, she was trying to speak, but couldn't.

"What?" He looked at her confused, then when she moved her fingers, he came closer and gave her the potion.

She took the phial from him and for a moment they all thought she would open and drink it, when suddenly she squeezed her hand and the small bottle broke in it, the liquid dropping upon the covers and running down her arm, mixed now with her blood from the new wounds.

George and Hermione looked at her in horror, but Giles reacted, quickly took Helen's hand to open the wounded palm and clear the glass splitters from the squashed phial.

"It's…. killing… me," Helen whispered and Giles froze, he wasn't sure what those words meant, nor whether she spoke them in a full presence of her mind, but somehow their sound scared him more than any of the scenes he had witnessed the previous days.

"Great! Not only is she completely scatty, she also-" George began in a strange high voice, that was supposed to sound light, but was only covering for his own panic that was now raising in him.

"Go… go to Poppy…" Helen spoke again, looking at Hermione, "get… Poppy, she'll… know… she'll… have… something else…"

"But-"

Helen shook her head as Hermione wanted to say something. She and George exchanged uneasy looks, as if they weren't sure whether they should listen to Helen and take her seriously. As she coughed heavily once more, George turned at Hermione: "Alright, get Pomfrey. Or should I rather-?"

"No, I go."

"Fine, then go, but hurry."

Hermione gave Helen one last look, before she turned on the spot and disaparated.

Giles was still sitting on the edge at the top of his bed, with one arm he was supporting Helen, she seemed to have difficulties with breathing and he was fearing that she might indeed choke on her blood. With his free hand he was holding hers that was wounded from the broken glass. He would take care of it later, he thought. He considered to get the disinfectant from his bathroom and clean the wound, but then he remembered what Hermione had said about the muggle painkillers and how they mustn't get mixed with wizarding potions, so he decided against it, fearing it could rather even worsen her state. He wasn't sure what he should, what he could do to help and it was frustrating.

Every now ant then Helen would open her eyes and look at him, but from the mostly blank, empty gazes he couldn't tell whether or when she was really noticing him, whether she was there or had fallen back into one of her feverish half-dreams.

"How long will it take for Ms. Granger to return?" Giles asked George finally after a few moments of silence.

"Well, she aparated in Forth Worth, took the portkey from there to the Ministry in London, from there she'll aparate to Hogsmeade, then will have to walk to the castle…" He paused to think and consider the time it would take in his head. "Hard to tell, I'd hope she'll be back in an hour, or two, depends on how she finds Madame Pomfrey…"

"Who is she?"

"Madame Pompfrey? She's the nurse at Hogwarts, like a-a doctor I believe you'd call her. And she's the best. She can heal anything. Hermione learned from her, if I remember correctly, after their sixth year, right before she and Ron and Harry left Hogwarts, Hermione asked her for some sort of a crash-course."

Downstairs the phone rang.

"Stay with her, I'll get it." George offered and ran down to pick it up. "This is the-uh… residence of Mr. Giles, George Weasley speaking, how may I help you?" He spoke in an overfriendly voice, clearly enjoying the experience of speaking into a telephone.

Giles couldn't tell who was on the other line, but when George began to furrow his brows and took the receiver away from his ear for a moment to give it a nasty glare, he thought he had an idea.

"What? The Library is closed, you say? How awful, sir!... It's a scandal, I agree with you completely…" He said sympathetically. "Who?... Miss McGregor is missing as well you say? Hmmm, that certainly is an odd coincidence… yes, I think you must be right, sir, they're probably together somewhere,… well, aren't they naughty, ts-ts… Fired? Both of them?" George asked calmly.

Giles went pale, but didn't move. Anger was coming up in him, with delight he would now want to grab Snyder, smash him on the ground and then…

"Yes, sir, I will pass the message, thank you for calling, have a nice day!" George said, still speaking in a bright, overly cheerful, enthusiastic tone. After he hung up, he went over to the armchair where he had left his coat. He checked for something in his pockets, then raised his head towards the bedroom. "I'll be off for a moment, have to pay a visit to your principal… he _is_ a stubborn one, isn't he?... I won't be long."

"Wait!" Giles said loudly. "W-what was that about? Did he-uh… say _fired_?"

George nodded, then said casually: "Yes, he did, don't worry." He was about to leave, but then he turned around in the doorway and yelled at Giles to make sure: "You _do_ want to have the job back, right?"

"Uh-… yes, yes, if-uh… that's not too much trouble I would appreciate." He replied, wondering how George would manage it, but then he decided he rather didn't want to know.

Minutes were passing, Giles' apartment was drowned in silence, Helen's irregular breaths were the only sounds to be heard. Giles felt restless, cramped through fear and worry. He looked down at the woman in his arms and wondered. He knew so little about her, he thought, about her life as it had been before she came here, what he knew was what others had told him, and yet he somehow found himself thinking how unimportant it was to him. He would be curious to know, of course, but looking at her, it occurred to him that he didn't care about that. It hurt him seeing her like this, he wished he could see those lips moving into that lovely shy smile of hers, that he could spot the dancing sparkles in her dark eyes again that appeared there every time she got excited about something, that he would hear her laughter soon again. Though her face was now burning up with fever, her eyes closed and with dark circles underneath them, brows furrowing every now and then probably from some feverish visions that might have been passing through her mind, and her lips slightly open, moving in silent murmur, he found her beautiful…

"Merlin, she looks awful!" Giles cringed, he hadn't noticed George who aparated right next to him. "I'd hoped Hermione would be back by now."

Giles looked up at him, then at the alarm-clock at his bedside table. It's been almost two hours, since Hermione left.

"I've got you your jobs back by the way," George said.

"Oh," Giles replied, he had already forgotten all about that. Once again he was thinking to call the ambulance, pondering in his head over what he'd tell them that might have happened to Helen, when fortunately in that moment a loud pop downstairs announced Hermione's return.

"Finally! What took you so long?" George nagged as Hermione ran up the stairs holding a small black bag in one hand. "Where is Madame Pomfrey?"

"She couldn't come."

George exhaled disappointed.

"They had some emergency in the castle, some accident during a Quidditch match… She had her hands full."

"Yeah? Who was playing?" George asked eagerly.

Hermione frowned. "I don't know." She came closer to the bed.

"Did she tell you what to do?" Giles asked.

"Ah-yes." She pulled a black phial out of the small bag. "We are supposed to give her this."

"What is that?"

"It's some other potion."

Giles gave the phial a mistrusting look, he was also getting a little impatient. All these wizarding potions didn't seem to have much of an effect. Hermione saw his doubts.

"I told her what was going on and that the other thing didn't work… She gave me an odd glare… and then… mixed this up for me," she gave Giles the bottle. "She said this was the right one… I didn't understand why the other mixture wouldn't stop the bleeding, but… she wasn't surprised, she was rather… like scared," Hermione said thoughtfully, shaking her head slightly – again she disliked not being entirely clear upon something. "I'll have to talk to her about it later again. She didn't have time to explain, but assured me that this would do."

"So you were giving her the wrong potion then all the time?" George asked.

"No!" Hermione defended herself. "When I told Poppy that I need something to stop inner bleedings, she was about to give me the same thing, wondered even, why I came at all as she thought I'd know what to do, then I told her it's for Helen and she was… weird, she just… nodded, then asked me to wait and about half an hour later brought me this one… there's bezoar-powder in it."

"Bezoar?" George asked in surprise. "I thought that was to be used against poisons."

Hermione shrugged merely.

"Hm, well, then," George motioned for Hermione to proceed.

"Right, it has to be administered as an injection," she said insecurely, then looked at Giles.

"I can do that," he said nodding and Hermione seemed relieved. She pulled out the gun from the bag and handed it to him.

When he was done with injecting the potion in Helen's right arm, Giles turned at Hermione. "What now? When can we expect…?"

Hermione bit her lip nervously.

"What?" George asked in a suspicious voice.

"She-ah… Poppy warned me that it might take quite some time, considering how large the bleeding is I guess… and…"

"And?"

"And she said it is going to be harsh."

"What is?"

"The next hours. She said we should be prepared."

"Prepared for what?" Giles asked in a quiet voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm telling it wrong. Don't worry, she will make it, but Poppy warned me that the coming few hours might be a bit scary, with the fever going high and the coughing attacks and spasms and stuff like that, but she said not to panic when that happens, but to keep calm and be patient, it _will_ pass away eventually."

Giles and George exchanged dark glances, neither of them liked what they heard.

"Her or the bleeding?" George asked, Giles looked at him in a mixture of horror and outrage. Yet George threw a glance over Hermione's shoulder at Helen, saying: "Hm, she looks fine to me right now, maybe it won't be so bad."

Right at that moment Helen winced as if some invisible hands had forced her to sit up, and began to cough heavily, spitting out blood on the covers she was tucked in. It was horrible to watch, Giles wasn't sure whether she was choking or even throwing up or whether it was just a simple cough.

"Oh, that's disgusting!" George said, squinching up his face.

Hermione turned angrily at him. "Then why don't you go downstairs then and let me take care of her instead of making these useless comments? !" She sat down on the other side of the bed, helping to support Helen to sit.

George looked embarrassed for a moment, then gave a snort and walked downstairs.

Giles wondered whether to open his mouth, afraid it might earn him some similar pointy remark, after all he felt exactly as _useless_ as George's _comments_ have been. He cleared his throat.

"What-uh… may _I_ do something? Is there somehow I can-uh… not just stand around?"

Hermione smiled at him, only now he noticed how tired she was. Neither of them had got a lot of sleep, yet she also had the journey to England and back behind her. "Yes, do you have any more pillows that we could pile for her to lean on to? And we'll also need some cold and wet towels to try and cool off the fever."

Giles nodded in silence. A while later he returned, bringing several pillows he could collect in his apartment along with a few towels and a large bowl with icy water.

"Uhm-do-do you want me to stay or should I better… join him?" He asked Hermione after they had adjusted the bed, nodding towards George who was sitting on the sofa downstairs, looking a little annoyed.

"Oh," Hermione laughed a little, "I'm sorry when I gave the impression that you're both underfoot, I didn't mean… I mean George certainly is, most of the time actually… but I can hardly tell you what to do while we are staying in your own house, and Helen's after all _your_-" She turned slightly pink, not knowing what the right word would be as she wasn't quite clear on what kind of a relationship there was between him and Helen, nor how far it had progressed. "ah-… girlfriend," she murmured quietly, giving him an unsure look.

He smiled nervously at her, turning red himself.

"I mean, you obviously do care a lot for her, otherwise we probably wouldn't be here like this." She added and took one of the towels to soak it in the water bowl, then continued in a more casual tone. "By the way, she must like you very much as well, I haven't seen her in such a merry mood as this Christmas in a long time… if ever at all." She looked up at the older man, who took off his glasses to clean them nervously, not knowing what to answer. "She seemed so… tranquil, much more balanced I'd say." Hermione said and placed a wet towel on Helen's forehead.

"Agree." They turned their heads to see George standing on the upper stairs. "Please, don't yell at me, Hermione, I won't drop any more _useless comments_, I only-"

"Oh, what a lovely silence that is going to be." Hermione noted dreamily, George glared at her.

"I just looked at the watch and I should be returning to London, at least for a while, Angelina will worry."

"You can use my phone if you'd like to call," Giles suggested to him.

George raised his brows indignantly, indicating exaggeratedly that to _phone_ someone was beneath his dignity.

"Thank you, but no. If Helen's fireplace was intact I could use it, but… anyway," he turned at Hermione, "you think she'll be alright?"

"Yes, well, Poppy was confident that she will… She shouldn't be doing any magic until she's fully recovered of course, but I guess she knows what a mess that does to her circulation."

"Hermione, I doubt she'll even want to after the past few days," George pointed out.

"Right, well hopefully she won't try to blow herself up again because of it all," Hermione said bluntly and the two men looked at her in shock. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

George sighed. "Very well then, I'll be going. I might pop in tomorrow and have a look at her fireplace, it seemed repairable, but I didn't want to get into it, I'll have to talk to someone at the Ministry first."

"Yes, alright, tell Ron I'll be back later, when it's over… I'll call him if there's any trouble," Hermione said. "Sorry I yelled at you by the way," she added.

George nodded, pretending to be still hurt, then he grinned. "I'm not sorry I knocked you off though earlier," he said remembering their earlier "magic-tests".

"Go now, before I yell again."

"Sure. Do you need anything brought from home?"

"No, thanks, I'm fine. Now go." She said impatiently as Helen got overwhelmed by yet another severe cough and George looked at her terrified.

"Right, bye then, for now, take care, all of you," he turned on the spot and disappeared.

Giles sat on the bed to change the towel on Helen's forehead that was already entirely dry and warm from her fever. "Don't you have to be back in London as well?" He asked, he was glad Hermione was there, but was asking himself whether she had no other obligations.

"No, I have a free week, I was supposed to learn for my exams on next Tuesday, but… it can wait."

"That's very-uh… kind of you." He said and Hermione could tell that he was surprised a little at her care, given how she had spoken of Helen's past before.

"Despite everything I said the other day, despite what I think of her actions, I am fond of her, Mr. Giles. She is strange, and I don't always quite understand her, but… I do like her. She was one of my favourite teachers at Hogwarts actually. I wish we could have had her in potions as well, professor Snape was…" For some reason she gave Helen a stealthy look and lowered her voice when saying: "… he was certainly unbeatable when it came to potions, but his teaching methods…"

"Potions?" Giles asked.

"Yes, I suppose it's like chemistry for muggles… Helen was substituting for Snape every now and then, when he was off, probably on some mission for Dumbledore or Voldemort, being the double-agent he was, he must have been quite busy…"

The ringing of the phone interrupted them anew.

"Yes?" Giles picked it up.

It was Willow. "Hey, Giles, what's new? How are you? How is Helen? We saw George at school before, he said you stayed with her."

He told her he and Hermione were still taking care of Helen, but didn't go into any details about her condition.

"Will you be back tomorrow then?" She asked.

"I don't know yet. I might have to call Snyder in the morning."

"Oh, speaking of! You should have been here today," Willow said excited and began to giggle. "There was an explosion in Snyder's office earlier."

"Oh?"

"Yes! Someone must have placed there some really mighty and stinky explosives, it smells like a dung, ewww, and his office is full of what looks like… well… dung-stuff… it was hilarious…" She said happily. "I mean…"

Giles could almost see her turn pink as she probably thought he wouldn't approve of finding that sorts of jokes on authority persons particularly funny. He smiled into the phone.

"I mean… terrible, shocking i-in a very, very b-bad way," she stuttered. "Right, the reason I'm calling is actually that it's Buffy's birthday on Saturday, you know, we wanted to prepare a surprise party for her."

"Oh," Giles had forgotten all about that too. "Yes, yes, I remember," he said scratching his head. "I-I'll think about it later, if you don't mind, there're still a few days to go, can-uh… we discuss it later perhaps?"

"Sure," Willow consented.

Giles then returned upstairs and Hermione told him – after he had asked – a little more about Snape's role in the war, about him killing Dumbledore, yet acting according to the headmaster's own wish, but she left out the parts about Harry's mother, deciding that that was for Helen to tell. "He might not have been a very nice person, but he was… as Harry put it, the bravest man we knew in the end." She looked at her watch, then said, reaching for the black phial at the bedside table and the injection next to it: "We should give her another shot, Poppy said, every two hours during the first twelve hours, that would be the climax she said, after that it should get better."

Giles raised his brows, wondering what that meant about the time _until_ then, he could hardly imagine Helen's state getting worse, but he was wrong. The hours that followed, Giles thought must have been among the toughest he had experienced. The agony he was going through when watching Helen's body tormented by one cramp after another, spitting out blood every few moments, was entirely new to him. When she wasn't fighting the unbearable cough, the sound of which was giving Giles goose-bumps every time it took hold of her, her helpless body was shivering, her limbs twitching, her head jerking. On several spots the blanket was soaked with blood from her previous wounds, but Hermione said that they were supposed to leave those for the time being and tend to them only when they were sure the inner bleedings were stopped and she wouldn't need any more of the new potion that Poppy had made for her. Her head was hot beyond any fever Giles had ever had, but he was too afraid to measure it, he had the feeling that a normal person, a muggle, would be dead by now...

After some time Hermione performed the spell again and announced a little relieved that some of the bleedings had in fact stopped. Though Helen's outside appearance did not show any signs of improvement, Hermione seemed confident enough to stay calm. And indeed several hours later, as they were both already exhausted from changing the towels, keeping the fever down or simply from the tension and the worry they had been in, they noticed Helen's breathing getting calmer, more regular and the now only occasional coughs became less violent, sounded less alarming.

"I must thank you that you had brought her here," Hermione spoke. "We could have taken her to St. Mungo's hospital, but-eh…. to say that she wouldn't like it would be quite an understatement, besides, I don't even know if she would make it through the transport."

It was already very early morning when Hermione, given Helen's seemingly better state, dared to perform the spell once more, and exclaimed in a tired relief: "Oh, Merlin's neck, it's over!"

Giles was sitting in a chair that he had brought for himself upstairs before, and was half asleep. At Hermione's words he looked up at the young witch. "Are you sure?"

Giles' mistrusting question seemed to have cooled Hermione's enthusiasm down a bit. After all she still didn't understand where the bleedings had comefrom, for she was sure they weren't caused by Rodolphus' spells. "Well, I am certain that the bleedings have stopped. But I guess we should still be on guard. They had appeared out of nothing, so there's no way to tell whether they won't emerge again."

"Hm," Giles looked gloomily at the sleeping Helen. They had taken away some of the pillows from behind her back, so that she could rest in a more horizontal position now that the danger of choking on her own blood was over.

Hermione was optimistic. "She's fine, sir, this is no comparison to what was going on only three hours ago, she's much better."

Giles nodded.

"I'd suggest we both go get a little sleep," she said and he reluctantly got up to his feet, then somewhat unwillingly descended the stairs, leaving Hermione to sleep on her magically conjured mattress.

"Bugger!" Giles woke up at some clinking noises and at Hermione's curbed curses. For a moment he was fearing that there might be something wrong with Helen, but then he realized that the sounds were coming from the kitchen, where Hermione apparently was making some tea. "_Reparo!_" He heard her whisper. He looked at a clock, it was nine in the morning, he would have to call the school that he won't be coming today.

"Good morning," he greeted Hermione, entering the kitchen.

"Morning, sir. Here… I made some tea," she offered him a cup.

"How is Helen?"

"Oh, she's fine. She's sleeping now, but was awake about an hour ago. She was asking after you actually, I told her you were asleep, I hope you don't mind, I didn't want to wake you…" She took a sip from her cup. "I will be leaving you now."

Giles raised his eyes at her.

"You have my number, in case something should happen, and…," she reached into the pocket of her trousers and took out a golden coin. "Here, if you need me, rub the coin, or put it in a fire, and someone will come." She handed him the fake galleon, very much like that one they had been using years ago to announce the next meeting of the Dumbledore's army. Giles looked at it rather perplexed, once again he had troubles taking seriously what Hermione just said. "I'll call later tonight to inquire how she is."

Once more she repeated to Giles how he should take care of the other wounds that Rodolphus had caused Helen, but she advised him to wait with it a little, at least until Helen would wake up. Then Hermione left.

Helen was still sleeping and Giles called the principal's office to excuse himself for not being there and for leaving the library closed for today. It was however Snyder's secretary, who picked up and told Giles – in a cheerful and amused voice – not to worry and that the principal was still cleaning the mess from that unfortunate yesterday's dung explosion in his office, also trying to find out who was behind it, so that at present he cared very little about anything else.

He then put on the CD Helen had given him for Christmas and let it play quietly, the calm, meditating piano music was making his eyelids heavy and he soon fell asleep again to wake up hours later at a soft cough from upstairs. Alarmed he hurried up to his bedroom. The sight of Helen however sitting in his bed, smiling at him tiredly, told him that everything was fine.

"You're awake," he spoke when he made a halt for a moment.

"I hope so," she said beaming at him.

_AN: Thanks for reading again, sorry for the cheesy parts. Any reviews will make my day, so if you have a few moments to spare, please leave a comment ;)._


	24. Chapter 24: Recovering

Chapter 24

Recovering

_AN: A next short bit, thank you again for the review, I apologize for not replying instantly. I feel really, really bad because I have been promising some "hot" stuff since ages, but I didn't think at first it would take me so long to reach the point in the story where I wanted to do that. But finally, there's a light at the end of the tunnel and now for real, real in the next chapter (25) your agony of waiting shall find its end :D _

_In this one however I tried to outline my OC a bit more, to make the character more conceivable, well, you shall be the judges as to how that worked _

Giles slowly approached her side of the bed with mixed feelings, glad, happy even, but also nervous.

She smiled at him again, then her look slid over the bed, her expression slightly desperate. "This is-eh… so embarrassing," she said and laughed.

He came to sit on the edge of his bed. "Why would you say that?"

"Well, beside the fact that you had to witness me in the most unfavourable moments during the past days," she began, then looked around herself again, saying in a disappointed voice, "this certainly isn't how I imagined being the first time in your bedroom." _O-oo_, she immediately turned pink and threw him a horrified glance, fearing that she might have said too much.

Giles raised his brows, but after the initial second of bewilderment he looked rather amused. "Well, nor did I," he responded calmly, smiling. "But-uh… it doesn't matter now. What's important is that you're alright after all that… It was-uh…," he paused searching for the right words to express his previous worries, "we-uh… we were very worried, you looked… quite-uh… bad."

"Hm, I don't remember much, it's perhaps better. I'm sorry you're having so much trouble with me… How are _you_ doing?" She looked at him seriously, scanning his appearance for any remainders of Rodolphus' attack. "I am so sorry that I couldn't stop him before he hit you with that spell…"

"Given what he had done to you I-uh… don't think it would be appropriate for me to complain," he dropped his look to the covers, where her legs would be, then he remembered: "Oh, Miss Granger asked me to take care of your injuries," he got up again and went over to the bedside table, where Hermione had left a set of potions, powders and some balsam. He took the first phial, trying to remember what it was for.

"That's the right one," Helen said encouragingly and Giles nodded, then pierced at her.

"Is it alright for you when I take care of that?" He asked.

"I would have no one else doing it," she replied and stretched out her right arm towards him, where a few cuts were still visible.

After he was done, he decided to let her sleep and save the talks for tomorrow, she was still very tired and indeed woke up only in the evening for a short while to request something to drink.

Hermione called and he told her that everything seemed to be fine, then wished her good luck for her exams and made his bed on the sofa once again.

On the next morning Giles came up to repeat the whole procedure of tending to the wounds. All in all they seemed to be healing very fast, even the deep, nasty looking one on her left thigh. When he finished and laid the last phial with some odd magical powder in it aside, he pulled the blanket back over Helen, letting his right hand rest on where her knee would be, which caused her heart jump in a pleasant excitement, then he threw a stealthy glance at her.

"What is it?" She asked.

"I-uh… don't know how to begin, so I just-uh… and please don't disappear again…," he began and she was looking at him entirely unaware of what was coming. "She- Miss Granger had told us – on her own, we weren't-uh… asking… exactly."

"Told you what?"

He looked her in the eyes, wanting to see and also fearing a little what her reaction would be. "About your-uh… condition – with the wand-twins, and about professor Snape…" Her eyes were widened, but he couldn't tell anything from their look at first. "… and about the-uh… ritual you did to-uh… put your magic away."

For a very short moment Helen felt as if someone had outpoured a pot of icy water on her, she dropped her look from his face to stare at his hand resting on the blanket, yet almost immediately she felt something else, more like a relief, a sort of liberation. "Oh," she said. Then she raised her head again, wondering. "H-how much… um… what-eh… did she tell you, I mean… about…" She stuttered.

Giles took a deep breath and then began to re-phrase the story that they had heard from Hermione, Ron and George on the Saturday afternoon. He however kept to himself the part where George had indicated that she might have embraced the risk of dying within the ritual – that she might have very well been aware of it, if not even welcomed it. He didn't want to overwhelm her too much. He decided to take it step by step, and to try and finally make her to talk about things on her own. When he finished, Helen was silent, but was looking him in the eyes.

"You never said you had a destiny too," he spoke, trying to sound light and calm, casual even.

To his surprise she laughed shortly.

"What?"

She shook her head, still smiling, but the look in her eyes became sad. "I-eh… I just remembered something… it was a coin… a silver sickle-coin, I still have it somewhere."

"Sorry?" He asked as he couldn't follow her.

After a short pause, as if she had been hesitating one more time, she spoke at last: "When I was ten and the time had come for me to buy a wand, my father wanted to take me to Mr. Gregorovitch, he was a very accomplished, renowned wandmaker and my father held him in very high esteem. Philip, the younger of my two older brothers, had bought his wand there five years before that… But I wanted to go to London," she spoke, her eyes sparkling a little and the half-whisper of her voice was trying to revive the excitement she had felt as a little girl, "I wanted to have a wand from Olivander's, where David – the older brother, whom I adored when I was little – got his and kept showing me all sorts of nice tricks with it every time he was at home, every evening conjuring up something new and waving with this fascinating piece of wood and teasing me… and I just wanted to have exactly a wand like that… It didn't help to explain to me that it was impossible to get the very same one, I wanted to go to Olivander's, I wanted to have everything David had got, I was sulking, until… my father finally gave in and said _let the sickle decide_."

Giles raised his brows.

"It's a coin, from wizarding currency… my father, always when he was sort of desperate or couldn't persuade me to do something, would let us toss a coin, and that had become the only way I would except the decision…" She smiled again at her memories, "I found out only later, that most of the times when the outcome was in his favour – when more serious decisions were at stake – that he had been actually cheating, using magic… but I was too small then, I didn't know… but for some reason he didn't cheat on that one. We tossed, heads or tails. Heads would have meant Gregorovitch, tails led to Olivander's… And I won. In a children's game I "won" myself my destiny. See how seemingly little insignificant moments engrave one's life?" She said, a faint trace of bitterness in her smile.

"But-… I thought the wand was waiting for you anyway, you were destined for the one-"

"Yes, that is true, but if I had gone to Gregorovitch, I would have found _some _wand that would do just fine, that would fit well, it wouldn't of course be any match to what I can do with mine now – I mean what I _could_ do before…, but… you see I might never have known that I could do better with another wand, or that there was another one."

"And when did you find out that-uh… you have a… that it's one out of a couple? Did this Olivander then tell you?"

"No, I learned about that only later, when I came to Hogwarts, which was… eight years later. My father had _not_ been ready to give in to sending me to Hogwarts when I'd received my letter of invitation. I was eleven, the Death Eaters were already very strong, it was… two years before Voldemort was defeated as he tried to kill Harry. My father refused to put me into Hogwarts, it wasn't very safe back then, so he took Philip, who was about to enter the sixth year then, off Hogwarts and sent us both to the school in Black Forrest. But Olivander had known of course, he had informed Dumbledore immediately after I had purchased the wand at his store… Then when I came to Hogwarts after my graduation to learn one more year there, he told us." She went silent, memories, nice but painful, came popping into her mind, memories she didn't want to think about, she wanted to leave behind because they weren't doing her any good now.

"I-uh… must say I felt a little…"_ Intimidated_ was the word he had on his tongue, but he swallowed it as Helen gave him a curious look. "… estranged… by this… Severus Snape."

Helen frowned, wondering what he could possibly be meaning, when he continued: "He was your destiny, and then I-uh… it made me feel out of place slightly," he said shrugging, and laughed tensely, attempting to make it sound lightly, witty perhaps, trying to conceal how much the thought was actually occupying and unsettling him.

It took her a few seconds before she understood, she looked at him bewildered, then said: "Rupert, don't even try to compare yourself with Severus," _Outch_, she saw him looking at her, shocked and just a little – hurt, offended. "That's _not_ how it was supposed to sound…" She closed her eyes, wishing she could take those words back.

"Look, with Severus it was… it was complicated… to say the least. We didn't have an ideal relationship – if such a thing is possible, or desirable for that matter… We ended up together because of the destiny, because some higher power forced us to, pulled us together… we sort of had no choice, it was decided hundreds of years ago, by powerful magic. We were very fond of each other, loved each other, surely, very much in a very own way, very… deeply even and… in an-eh… in an unconditional way, and it was nice… in the start… We were soul-mates, not because we were alike, no, we actually didn't have much in common, though a few things yes, it was more the way that we _knew_ each other perfectly well, we knew like everything about the other, more or less, we knew each other's thoughts and pains, opinions, feelings – in every situation… it was a… a heavy share too, it was very different than with Claudius." From the look in Giles' eyes she realized that he didn't know about him either, so she shortly said, indicating with a headshake that it wasn't important: "My first husband. Him I didn't know, didn't care, I wanted to leave Hogwarts, I was nineteen, wanted to live, and he happened to be there at the right time. Severus I knew… entirely, completely, about from the first moment we met, as he knew myself. But you see, our relationship, it was always sort of heavy, a constant burden above us, a feeling of some invisible pressure… A-and I wondered sometimes, and I even asked him once what he thought, whether he thought we would be likely to end up together if there wasn't the wandlore tying us up. Just like me he wasn't sure, he didn't know. Or he didn't say because he didn't want to hurt me... And there was Lily Evans."

Giles was listening and it occurred to him suddenly that she probably in the last half an hour had said more to him about herself than she had done during the past fifteen months he has known her.

"Lily Evans?" He asked, hoping he wouldn't stop the flow of the sudden outburst.

"She wasn't there from the beginning. During the first year I didn't know much about her, only that there she had been once, a friend, a girl he had been very fond of. Only later, when we met again, after Claudius' death and my auror's apprenticeship, only then I noticed she had become the shadow above us… A ghost from his past – which was hardly her fault, I know, yet… I was… I wanted to hate her, but how can you hate someone you don't even know? And there was Harry, who might truly, without me exaggerating, be one of the kindest, bravest, most decent persons I've ever met, and he's her son, and I kept hearing everybody around me saying that he's _just like his mother_, _so kind-hearted, so good,_ _just like Lily_," she spoke slightly bitterly now, "I knew she must have been… great… and I was jealous. And I understood Severus at the same time, she was his… ideal, this thing he never had, he never was with her like that, you know? She never was his. Their relationship, I mean their friendship ended through his failure before it could have become anything more…. That's one of the reasons she was always there later, she was his… muse, or I don't know how to call it, the unreachable idol, he never had her – and I don't mean it just in the manly, "conquesting" way – so he could imagine how it could have been if things had turned out differently, he could idolize her, their fictional relationship, he could keep dreaming of it still, can you understand?" She looked up to see Giles nodding. "It had the sex appeal of the unfulfilled dream… I could never compete with that… It haunted him because he'd never know, he wondered if it would have been better with Lily, if he would have loved her more, or in another way than… And then the weight of the remorse of what he had done… You see though I'm sure he loved me in his way,… I wasn't the _love of his life_." She said matter-of-factly. "I was his destiny. And he was mine. We never, at no point, were really happy, I used to wonder whether – had the world we had been living in been different, no dark times around us, would we too then have had a better lot? I don't know, I doubt it. There was always the feeling that we were together for some _higher_ purpose, we sensed that there was this heavy burden on our shoulders – the magic, the "contract", the wandlore – it's always been floating above our heads like some kind of a-a… watcher… sorry, bad choice of words," she laughed.

"He died in the battle," Giles said, it wasn't really a question, for Hermione had told him about it. He watched Helen's face turn earnest, stern even, as she dropped her look again.

"Yes," she replied shortly.

"I'm sorry."

"Hm, well, it turned out it was all part of this great plan," she spoke cynically, her voice icy, "he never stood much of a chance I'm afraid, playing for both sides the way he was – it was a wonder he made it that far."

Her tone was disturbing, pointy and cold, Giles sensed some unsolved, undealt grievances behind the matter and he chose not to dig in that topic any further. Instead he decided to poke into the last, most delicate theme.

"There's-uh… one more thing, two actually," he said and from the nervous, almost panicky look in her wide-opened eyes he could tell that she had an uneasy sense of what he was going to ask. So for a moment he considered to question her about the book first instead and put the other thing aside, but then he thought it would only prolong her agony and that it might be the best if he'd make her to get it out now. He spoke in a soft, calm voice, trying to sound encouraging, but not inquisitive, not pestering: "Miss Granger said that they had-uh… saved you before you-… before the ritual was completed. And that it might have cost you your life hadn't they been there in time."

She was silent and Giles could almost hear her heartbeat getting faster, he felt her stiffen underneath the blanket.

"Mr. Weasley said that that might have been what you wanted," he said, then after a while he added in a less serious tone: "He seemed to be very worried afterwards that you might-uh… kill him because of it."

She smiled. The last remark seemed to have relieved her of the tension and the angst. _So George knew all the time then, he truly knows me too well sometimes_, she thought. She sighed, her fingers were playing nervously with the edge of her blanket.

She spoke after a long while, during which she was gathering the courage, trying to stay calm while talking about it as she hasn't done with anyone before.

"He-eh… is not wrong," she said and threw a fearing look at Giles, but he didn't seem appalled or shocked by this. For some reason she recalled that intense dream she had had about a year ago, where they had made love on the cuddly carpet in the apartment in Vienna and for a brief moment she felt again the familiar, even intimate closeness to him, and suddenly by the look at him sitting at her bed she felt that she finally _wanted_ to spit it all out, to get it out, rest-less, keeping no pieces, no parts of it to herself, to get rid of it at last, and that this was the person, whom she would want to tell after all. Not because it was such a charming and lovely story, but because she thought that he would listen and – if not understand – so at least he would not scorn her for it.

"He's not wrong," she repeated more firmly now. "I-eh… I wanted to-eh… lay the magic down and then… leave – without it… What they wouldn't understand was… it wasn't a-a sudden impulse, it didn't emerge from a-a moment of weakness, nor was it a rush, lightly made step… it's an attitude. An every-day option… They, Hermione, Ron, even George had no idea, what it was like, how it feels, thinking every day, asking yourself every day, if only for a moment, but for a moment on every single day – that you would like to… leave. What would it be like? Would it really be so awful – to just... go? To leave this meaningless, this pointless existence and give this futile life up? For good?" She didn't dare to look at him, as she continued slowly, weighting every word.

"And for many years by that time, every day I had been thinking about it. At first it was frightening, the suggestion abysmal and shocking, the image so scary... But with the time passing it became – an option, a possibility, an alternative. An everyday-thought. When thinking of the future, when planning tomorrow, what is to be done next, this and that, it would always slip into my mind – like _I could go shopping, or I could also die. I could go to see a film, or to a concert or clean the apartment, or I could kill myself. _It was always there. I have been living with it every day. Not really knowing how firm or how thin the line would be between the thought and the act itself when it'd come to it... Sometimes I think it would be so easy and quick to just – jump off, to swallow, to pull the trigger, to cut, to push the chair away... and imagine the calmness afterwards. Sometimes I was so afraid of the pain... And yet sometimes I wonder how severe it would actually be, what is a pain of that kind like? And sometimes I prayed that I'd never gather the courage to really find out..."

Giles listened, a little alarmed at the confusing tenses she was talking in, not quite sure what was in the past and what of it was still occupying her.

"A-and I decided to leave England, to come here to keep myself busy… every day was the same, I was waking up every morning with the simple plead to God _please, get me through this day somehow, keep my mind away from that thought that I don't actually _want_ to be here_…" She was staring at something invisible in front of her.

Giles waited a moment and when she didn't say anything anymore, he asked: "And now? Has it changed?"

Slowly she raised her head and the blank, almost dreamy gaze in her eyes disappeared and instead she was looking at him in what seemed to be surprise, astonishment, then said amazed: "I haven't spoken of this… to anyone… ever."

Giles could somehow easily believe that. "And does it feel better now? Having it got out?"

"I guess," she said, wondering herself. "Yes… But you said there was something else you wanted to talk about?"

"Hm? Oh, yes," he had forgotten all about the book in the meantime, it seemed strangely trivial now. "It's about the-uh… the book, which you had used for that-uh… that ritual back then."

She frowned. "Yes? What about it?"

"Do you still have it?"

She thought for a moment. "Yes, I think I do, it's probably-" She blushed a little now, remembering something, and cleared her throat nervously. "It should be in my old apartment in London. Why do you ask?"

"Do you remember the title? And where you got it from?"

She gave him an odd look. _How could he know_, she thought, _he's probably just curious_. _I should have handed the damn book to the ministry anyway, I forgot all about it afterwards…_

"It was very old, written by hand actually, 14th century I guess, with rich illuminations, wait…," she was tipping her fingers upon her lips trying to recall the exact title, "something about-eh… dark powers long extinguished… _De potestatibus infernis_… yes, yes – _De potestatibus infernis diu_-"

"-_diu_ _exstinctis habitis_?" He finished, his expression hardened, his apprehension confirmed.

She looked at him entirely perplexed. _Does he know _everything? She thought, a little amused even. "Wow, you're good," she said, half-joking, but then noticed his glum face. "What's the matter? How _did_ you know?"

"Can you remember how you got the book?"

Now she looked guiltily at the blanket again. "I found it during our aurors' search of the Death Eaters' households, I should have it delivered to the Ministry…" She turned even more red now. "But as I was browsing it and then I saw that ritual and-eh… well, I-uh… found it useful back then," she said with a touch of self-mockery in her voice, "so I kept it."

Giles nodded slowly. "Were there… did you see any stamps inside?"

"No, I don't remember… You're mysterious, Rupert, what are all these questions?" She asked curiously.

"I know that book, very well, too well, it's a Latin translation by a monk named Innocentius, the-uh… Greek original's been lost… anyway, I'm quite certain that the book you used belongs to the Council's library."

She stared at him, not sure what he was suggesting there.

"I had a call from Robson a few days ago," he began to explain and told her everything that his friend had reported him, leaving nothing out.

He saw from the expression over her face that it was all just as new and disturbing to her as it had been to him.

"I've tried to call James this morning to ask, whether he had spoken with my father yet, but-uh… he's been out." He added after he had finished the story.

Helen was looking at him, though absentmindedly, there was so much new information in what he had told her and she wasn't sure upon which to set her focus first.

"Do you know this Edgar Thornton?" He asked.

"Hm? Edgar Thornton? Yes, well, no, not really, we've never met, he's-eh… my-eh… uncle I believe is the term," she said raising her brows, wondering.

"Your uncle?" Giles looked surprised.

"My mother's older brother."

"And you don't know him?"

"No. My mother didn't maintain any contact with her family, that's another story, not important right now… But what do you make out of it all?" She asked, meaning the whole affair with the lost books.

"Well, it seems quite clear. Those books were sold."

"Sold?" Her face showed a trace of disbelief.

"Exchanged perhaps would be a better term. I think, Quentin might have offered them to the Death Eaters in exchange for something else."

"But how can you be sure they weren't just stolen?"

"Well-uh… I can't… exactly," Giles admitted unwillingly.

"And here's another thought," she interrupted him. "Those books, you said most of them dealt with summoning demons or opening hell dimensions and releasing hell creatures, but…," she shook her head, "nothing like that happened in the Battle or before. There were no demons."

"So the Death Eaters didn't use them. Why not?"

"Maybe they couldn't use them… Don't you have to have the-eh… the other kind of magic… what would you call it – the earth magic – to summon them? I doubt any of them were disposing of it."

He shot her a meaningful look, then said shortly: "Ethan Rayne."

"I see," she spoke quietly and understood. And after all Ethan might not have been the only muggle friend of the Death Eaters.

"So what went wrong then? Why didn't they use it?" Giles asked, more rhetorically.

Suddenly Helen had an idea. "Maybe nothing went wrong. Maybe they didn't use it – just yet. Maybe they planned to-," she paused and gulped, the idea was crazy, abhorrent, yet it would fit, she thought. "Maybe they would have needed the demons later, when they won the battle, to-eh… _purge_ the earth… from muggles."

Giles' eyes widened. "But-eh… surely that would be too dangerous for themselves as well, I mean, demons aren't exactly obedient, they don't-uh… know loyalty, they don't serve the one who summoned them, it would surely be too risky to do it in such a large extent," he objected.

"Yeah, you're probably right, it sounds rather loopy. You should keep in touch with your friend and-eh… we should consider going to Kingsley, our Minister, with it. Perhaps he can order to question some of the Death Eaters, they could know what was in the bargain for the council – if it indeed was a part of some trade, though… they might not be very willing to talk."

Giles nodded. "Yes," he said shortly, when the phone rang.

It was Willow, announcing that they have now planned Buffy's surprise party for the coming Saturday. He promised to be there, then hung up.

"Would you like something to eat?" He asked Helen when he came up again.

"Yes, actually," she blushed, "I-eh… I'd really like to take a bath first, I must stink like hell."

"Of course." He helped her get up, descend the stairs and walk to the bathroom and when she assured him that she could do the rest by herself, he left her and went to prepare some lunch.

After a nice and hot bath and a proper meal Helen felt much better, the colour returned into her cheeks, only her legs weren't still working up to their full strength. They spent the rest of the day talking. Giles referred to her about Hermione's and George's "tests" and that they would like to talk to Angel later, who seemed to be the only person knowing anything about the odd nature of the wand-magic in Sunnydale.

On the next morning, Giles once more tended to the few cuts and wounds Helen still had, and was amazed to see how fast the others had healed and almost disappeared. Eventually he went to work, not wanting to exhaust his luck with Snyder and left Helen alone as she seemed to be well enough.

In the library he found the huge mountains of returned books and sighed. He had been hoping that maybe Willow and Xander had taken care of it yesterday, but then he remembered they probably had their hands full with planning the party for Buffy.

However when the latter came to the library later, she didn't seem to be in a very joyful, as Xander put it "pre-birthday spanking" mood, something was apparently bothering her and when Giles asked her about it, she told him about a peculiar dream she had had, where Drusilla was still alive and killed Angel.

"You fear it was more of a-a portent?" He asked her, sensing that the dream must have been worrying her more than she would show.

"See, I don't know. I don't wanna start a big freakout over nothing." She said unhappily.

"Still, best-uh… to be on the alert, just in case. If Drusilla is alive, it could be a fairly… cataclysmic state of affairs." He said in a cheerless voice.

"Again, so many words, couldn't you just say 'we'd be in trouble'?" Xander said and almost satisfied he received the expected familiar almost obligatory glare from the watcher, that Giles had been reserving for him only.

"Xander, go to class." He said, sounding unimpressed.

He then said Buffy not to worry too much, but to keep her eyes and ears open during her next patrols.

He felt himself uneasy about it, but there was nothing he could do, nothing what he could research, it was just a feeling that maybe there was something more behind the dream.

He returned home in the late afternoon and found Helen sitting on his sofa, reading a book.

"Hello," he said while hanging his coat on the hanger next to the door.

She got up and greeted him cheerfully. "Oh, hello, you're back!"

"Dear lord, what happened?" He spotted a new bloody wound on her forehead above the left eye.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I fell asleep on your sofa and-eh," she turned pink, "I fell as I woke up and then I hit my head on the corner of your coffee table…"

"When?" He threw his bag on the floor.

"Oh, couple of hours ago."

Giles raised his brows, a question in his eyes.

"Oh, there might be a little stain," she said in a small voice, "…on your carpet, but-eh… I can clean that."

Giles' brows went even higher and she looked at him confused. "And what about the nasty scratch?" He walked over to her.

"Oh… Is it nasty?"

"Yes, why didn't you take care of it?" He asked and raised his hand to brush softly with his fingers over the dried blood in the small wound and to place a loosen hair string behind her ear.

"I couldn't find my wand," she tried to defend herself.

Giles glared at her in disbelief. "Your… wand?" He asked, unsure of whether to be angry or to just shake his head. "What about some water, a disinfectant and a tape? They're all in my bathroom," he said, giving her a stern look, but the twitching corners of his mouth were betraying him.

"What are those?"

"Sit," he said in a strict tone, pointing at the sofa, then disappeared in the bathroom. She obeyed and sat down. Soon Giles returned with a small bowl of water, a small bottle and a package of tapes. He put them on the coffee table, then knelt down in front of her to have a closer look. She squirmed a little.

"Hm," he wondered, observing the small cut, "it looks like a lightning bolt."

She looked at him horrified. "What? !"

"Yes, it's funny, it looks like a small lightning."

"Please be kidding!"

He looked at her confused, then said again strictly: "Now hold still. You don't want to have a scar there, do you?"

"No, no, definitely not. Not a lightning bolt anyway," she replied annoyed.

"It doesn't look too bad," he said while carefully cleaning the cut, which previously appeared to be worse merely because of the smeared blood around it.

"Good, just please, please, make sure there won't be any scar… maybe there's still some of the powder Hermione left behind…"

"No, thank you, I think once in a while we can do it the muggle-way," he said bemused, swabbing on the cut, then when it was clean enough he took a piece of tape and put it carefully upon it.

His face was only inches from hers, the right hand kept touching the tape, while he laid his left hand upon her knee and she immediately felt the goose-bumps running up her whole body, while staring into his eyes.

"How-uh… is your leg by the way?" He asked, almost whispering, his heartbeat too got a little faster, he seemed to realize only now how close they were.

"Hm? My leg…," she spoke, his fingers were stroking over her cheek tenderly and it made her close her eyes for a moment and gulp. "…it's-eh… fine," she whispered, her voice a little shaky from the emerging excitement.

"Good," he exhaled quietly, leaning even closer over her face. And then he kissed her, placing his hands on her hips and she felt her stomach doing the amazing somersault again as his lips touched hers, only briefly at first, like a gentle greeting, and then again, but without parting this time. He was kissing her with the utmost pleasure, he wanted to pamper her lips but she soon opened her mouth impatiently to let him in at last… It was better than any dream. He was holding her firmly, his tongue was gently playing with hers and she didn't quite know what to do with her hands, she was fumbling for his shirt, caressing over his chest, automatically searching for the buttons beneath his tie. Then his hands began to move too, sliding downwards, across her thighs…

"Oh," she winced a little at a pain from the last remaining wound on her left thigh, and Giles heard her quiet moan and stopped abruptly.

"What is it?" He asked anxiously.

"Nothing," she shook her head, trying to put on a casual face, he glared at her and wanted to say something, but she was faster: "Tomorrow!" She exclaimed, then blushed immediately, her mouth had once again been faster than her brains.

He looked at her a bit confused.

"Tomorrow… I-eh… I'll cook you dinner," she hurried to say. Giles raised his brows, wondering what brought the odd suggestion. "Eh-… except that-eh… I can't cook," she said, looking rather desperate.

He smiled, then looked at his watch and got up. "I must go now, I promised Willow and Xander to come along and have a look at a few locations for Saturday. They're planning Buffy's surprise party."

"Oh," she said, a little taken aback and disappointed that he was leaving again, then got up herself.

"You know what?" He spoke, stroking her cheek again. "I-uh… I'll make dinner tomorrow, I-uh… fancy myself as rather good when it comes to cooking…"

"So I've tasted," she said, a smile returned upon her lips.

"… and then we'll have a nice, quiet…," he cleared his throat, the words _or maybe not so quiet_ were on his tongue, "uh-evening, have a-uh… toast-uh… t-to your recovery," he stammered.

"Sounds like a-eh… good plan," she answered, nodding nervously, feeling like a schoolgirl arranging a first date.

"Right then," he slowly moved towards the door. "I'll be off then, don't wait up, I might return late, I asked Buffy to come to the library after her tonight's patrol, something might – or might not – be going on."

"Alright, take care then, and be careful," she said. He looked at her once more before he left, regretting he had to go.

Though it was very early when Helen woke up on the next morning, Giles was already about to leave for work.

"Good morning," she greeted him descending the stairs.

"Good morning," he replied, putting on his tweed jacket in quite a hurry.

"And? Did you find a suitable birthday-party-place yesterday?"

"Yes, yes, we did, an old production hall in the eastern part of town, they're going to prepare everything tomorrow morning." He collected some of his books into his bag. He looked at his watch and cursed: "Bloody… I have to go now, Snyder wants to see me before the first period," he murmured and gave Helen a miserable look. "I wonder what about, but-uh… I think it's safe to guess that it won't be about anything-uh… pleasant." He suddenly straightened up, a terrified expression appeared on his face. "Dear lord, I hope he doesn't want me to take over the talent show this year again!"

Helen watched him amused as he was talking and rumbling in his bookshelves at the same time, until he finally gave up whatever he had been looking for.

"Well, we survived it last year, so we would do again," she said lightly.

"If you say so," he said drearily, apparently the scary scenario of being in charge of the next school talent event entirely took hold of him. "Oh, damn that book, I have to run now." He turned around, grabbed his bag and was about to leave, but turned around once more in the doorway to look at her. "Tonight, dinner, as I promised," he said in a more cheerful voice, as he was already looking forwards to it, the thought of the evening would hopefully get him even through the dreadful appointment with Snyder.

"I'll be here," she replied beaming at him.

After a short moment he nodded nervously, as if he had just realized what the evening was promising and the familiar heat of anticipation hit him anew.

_AN: Next chapter – really – more than kisses . However I am off for ten days now, and afterwards for three months, going to do some – unfortunately not fan-fiction-related research, and am not sure if I can keep up with the posting as it's been till now, but I'll try. Possibly I'll have to change the rating, I'm not sure, I haven't dealt yet properly with the rating system, but maybe it will have to be M-rated then, so – just that you know in case you are following the story, you might have to check the M-rated stories later to find this one._


	25. Chapter 25: Forebodings

_AN: Hey dears, a very short chapter this one, I just wanted to give a life-sign of myself and reassure those few of you who are tracking the story that I haven't given it up ;) After three months I now finally have a bit of time to continue and think about where it, where all the different parts of it should lead to. I shall post a new update very soon. In case you'd like to read some "pure" romance, cuddly, sexy stuff, I had posted a short story about Giles and Helen couple of weeks ago, which might – hopefully – fulfil those attributes, and if it doesn't let me know either way :D._

_Well, enjoy this bit and thanks a lot for your patience and staying with this story so far ;)_

Chapter 25

Forebodings

Giles arrived at school with a sinister apprehension, he was already late for the appointment with Snyder and was bracing himself for the nasty tirade he was sure he would get from the principal. He knocked on Snyder's office and the short, familiar bark "Come in" only reinforced his bad feeling. He entered.

The place smelled quite oddly, as if someone had been trying very hard to cover with strong perfumes or aroma-candles the smell of something really disgusting, like dung – which by the way was still hanging in the air despite their every effort.

Snyder stood up from his desk and gave Giles a penetrating look, but didn't speak. Giles walked hesitantly towards him. "I-uhm… I apologize for being late."

Snyder nodded gloomily, but didn't reply. He kept looking at the librarian and appeared to be in somewhat of an inner turmoil, as if he was about to say something he didn't actually want to and some part of him was still fighting against it.

"What-uh… h-how may I-uh… be of help to you?" Giles asked after a moment of awkward silence.

"What?" Snyder replied rattily. "No, no you can't." He snapped, then pointed towards one of the armchairs and Giles took a seat, feeling more alarmed with every second.

Snyder cleared his throat. "I asked you to come, because… H-hh… because I'm…," he furrowed his brows and kept staring at his desk, fighting whatever was about to urge from his mouth. "I'm raising your salary," he finally said, addressing the papers on his desk rather than Giles, then shook his head incomprehensively. "25%." He raised his eyes finally and stared at Giles, there was disbelief in them, wonderment, as if he was amazed himself by the words he had just uttered.

Giles frowned. He was sure he must have heard the principal wrong. "I'm sorry-uh… what did you-?"

"Retrospectively."

Giles opened his mouth, but couldn't think of anything to say.

"You'll get the outstanding money for the past year and a half added to your next salary," Snyder said.

"What-uh… are you talking about?" He finally asked cautiously. Had Snyder ever shown any sense of humour, Giles would think that this was all a tasteless joke, but as it was, he had to presume that the principal was serious. All in all it still didn't make him comfortable.

Snyder closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, he appeared very angry, agitated, bewildered.

"May I ask why-… not that I'm-uh… I'm not complaining, far from it, I just-uh… wonder-uh... what brought this up," Giles spoke carefully.

"Don't ask me!" Snyder's yell made him jump in his seat. "I don't know, I don't get it myself, believe me I've tried to fight it, but I… I have to raise your salary…", again he spoke in a tormented whisper, "I just have to do it, and I don't know why, it's like…" He hit his desk with both his fists, "damn, you can be sure I'm not doing it out of my free will!"

"No? Then-uh…", in that moment Giles' look fell on a pile of documents on Snyder's table. They all had a brownish touch and looked as if they had got wet – by something, well, brown. And smelly.

"Look, I don't know. Just..." He pressed his lips tightly together. "...take it and let us never mention it again."

Giles raised his brows.

"What? ! Take it, Mr. Giles, and leave, I have other things to do right now!"

Giles was still staring at him rather incredulously, but when Snyder barked one more time "_Go!_", he jumped up and hurried to leave the principal's office.

"I also feel like I should fire that awful history teacher," Snyder murmured to himself, "except that... I don't really want to..." There his voice changed and got a soft, unnaturally moony undertone that Giles had never heard him speaking in. Just before he shut the door behind him, he heard the principal saying dreamfully: "I think I'm in love with her..."

_No_, he must have heard it wrong. He shook his head and sped up to get as quickly as possible back to the safety of his library.

Helen was sitting on the sofa, reading one of Giles' books when a knock on the door interrupted her lecture. It was George and Angelina.

Helen looked at them in surprise.

"..."

"Glad to see you're not lazing around anymore," George said before she could say anything, and entered the apartment, not waiting for her to invite them in.

"Here, we brought you this," Angelina gave George a disapproving glare, then smiled at Helen and offered her a small package. There was some tea from a tea-place at Diagon Alley, along with some sour candies and ginger biscuits. "George said those were your favourites."

"Are they super-sour?" She asked.

"Of course they're super-sour," George shook his head indignantly.

"From Hayden's?"

"From Hayden's... Oh, and they have some new stuff too, I was really angry, 'cause they've started making these chocolate wands, filled with all sorts of liquids, butter beer, ginger beer... even with vodka or gin, depending on what spell you manage to cast with them... _I_ wanted to do that! I had the idea months ago!"

"Yeah, that puts our problems quite into a perspective, huh?" Angelina and Helen exchanged amused looks.

"It's good you're here though, you must do something for me," Helen spoke.

George grinned at his wife. "See? I told you she'd be happy to see us."

"I need you to bring a few things from my house. Clothes and stuff for tonight."

"What's tonight?" George asked.

Helen turned pink suddenly, saying innocently: "Nothing," then turned to Angelina and began to explain to her what she'd need.

"Right, we'll bring it to you, George wanted to have a look at your fireplace anyway, so – that's why we came actually," Angelina said.

"Oh," Helen turned at George now. "You think it's repairable?"

"Yes, I think it might be. I spoke to Cornish the day before yesterday and told him how it looked at your place, and he said I should be able to fix it with a few spells."

"You think you can do that?" Helen asked with what sounded like she was having doubts that George should be entrusted with that kind of a task.

George looked at her, pretending to be aggrieved by her mistrust. "I won't dignify that question with an answer." He turned away and moved towards the door.

"Don't worry, I'm coming with him to make sure he'll merely do the repairs, without including any... you know... funny things." Angelina reassured her.

"Cool, what's this?" They both turned to George who just exclaimed enthusiastically, and they saw him holding a large crossbow in one hand and a remarkable axe with some peculiar engravings both on the blade and on the grasp in the other. "Is this for the slayer? Boy, she must be some sight wearing these," he was murmuring more to himself, "pointing it at a man's chest..." His voice got a little dreamy and Angelina raised her left brow a little. "... wearing some tight top, all sweaty,... that fiery and sexy glare in her eyes when she's about to attack...," he sighed, "Merlin, I wish I was a vampire," he added in a tormented undertone, when Angelina finally cleared her throat.

George shrugged as if he just woke up and noticed them, then spotted his wife's annoyed look, and threw the two weapons back into to open case next the door. A bright, shiny smile appeared on his face when he walked to Angelina, the same smile that Helen had encountered first on the face of his twin brother – it had to be about five years ago (_God, is it only five years? It seems to me like it's been centuries since... as if that had been in a different life, in a different _universe _for that matter..._) – when she took over the history class of Professor Bins, a smile she knew too well and one that had the power to melt even the most resenting heart.

"Oh please, darling, you know you'd be the _only_ Slayer for whom I would actually turn into a vampire," he said flirty to Angelina.

Angelina shook her head, pretending to be appalled.

"No? I could be your _sire_ then," he continued drawling in a false raspy seducing tone, "we could be a great couple together," he reminded Helen on a scene from a very bad movie.

"... an, immortal couple, we would make _loud, noisy, bed-smashing, shattering_ love in a wooden hut in the middle of a forest..."

The girls frowned now. "That's rather gross, honey," Angelina said.

George blushed. "Sorry, just a dream I had the other night, hh," he cleared his throat embarrassed, "about-uh... a vampire and a-uh... meadow... hh-hh, I better write a book about it," he added, avoiding their amused looks.

Angelina said, fighting a laughter, "yes, dear, you better. Now let's go and see what you can do about that fireplace." She turned once more at Helen to wave her goodbye and then they moved to leave.

Right before they closed the door behind them, Helen heard Angelina saying: "By the way, why would you want to be a vampire? You're already a wizard. Wizards are _way_ cooler..." Helen smiled to herself, then she caught George's reply.

"Yeah, but I could be an _immortal_ wizard..." The door shut at last and suddenly the sound of it combined with those last words made Helen shiver.

_An immortal wizard_... It kept echoing in her head and she stood there in the middle of the living room, staring blankly into the space.

After the peculiar talk with Snyder Giles headed to the library, still wondering why the principal all of a sudden had raised his salary – and by that obscene amount of 25%... Yet he didn't have much time to spend any more thoughts on it, as soon Buffy came, looking a little uneasy, and told him that one particular scene from her previous dream, from the very same dream, in which also Drusilla killed Angel, actually happened this morning when Buffy's mom let a plate fall from her hands and it went to pieces.

"Yes, well, I admit, I'm somewhat-uh... intrigued... by this," he said, then noticing Buffy's raised brows, he hurried to add: "I-I mean puzzled, it's quite uncanny... alright, maybe a bit alarming as well, but still, let's not lose our heads," he said firmly, as he knew how impulsive Buffy could get anytime Angel was involved. "Even if, I say _if_ Drusilla was alive, we would-uh... find a way, to-to... deal with it, I'm sure. Now go to your classes, we'll meet here tomorrow and do some research," he said and caught Willow's conspiratory twinkle. Unwillingly, Buffy got up from the table on which she had been sitting, grabbing her bag she said "see you later, guys," and left.

"So we're gonna go ahead with Buffy's party?" Xander asked. "Despite this... whatever one might call it... prophecy... creepy slayer-visions?"

"Oh, yes," Giles nodded, browsing in a book that he was holding in his hands, "except that I won't be wearing the little hat." He gave Willow an austere look from above the frame of his glasses, but the corners of his mouth were twitching.

"Great. And anyway, Angel's coming. So she'll be able to protect him _and_ have a cake." Willow said happily.

"Precisely." Giles replied, then gave them both a look that was suggesting that they too had classes to attend.

George and Angelina returned about two hours later. They found Helen sitting on the sofa, still in the night shirt she was wearing before, bent over several volumes of books, browsing in one of them, frowning, shaking her head and muttering some indiscernible words.

"Ho-hoo, we're back," George spoke.

"Hm?" Only when they came to stand right in front of her, she raised her head. "How did it go?" She asked, albeit a bit unfocused.

"Here," Angelina stretched out her hand, holding a small satin bag in it. "All there, clothes, shoes, and the other stuff."

Helen looked at it for a few seconds, she still seemed a little distracted. "Oh, right. Thank you," she got up and took it. "Could you-eh...," she turned pink, "it's just that I-eh can't use magic right now, could you-eh... please..."

"Sure, sorry, forgot about that," Angelina slapped her own forehead in apology, then pulled her wand from her pocket, tipped it at the tiny bag, saying "_Engorgio_", and it immediately grew into its proper size. Helen shortly peered inside, but it was more an absentminded gesture, than a real check whether there's everything she'd asked for.

George was watching her quizzically. "I wasn't so lucky with the floo though," he said.

"Hm?" She looked at him, wondering for a moment what he was talking about.

"I could repair the fireplace... let's say from the architectural point of view, but... the connection isn't working, there must be something I'm missing, some spell, but I'll talk to Cornish once more, or bring him with me next time, he can have a look at it."

"Yes," she replied in a quiet, blank voice.

"What's wrong with you? !" George asked annoyed.

Her eyes widened. "I'm sorry, George, I just..."

"I know I said I'll fix it, and I'm sorry I didn't. But I will! I'll look into it."

"Mhm, yes." She said again, but obviously was thinking about something completely different, tipping her fingers on her lips.

"You could at least show a little appreciation, it's not like Sunnydale's round the corner, you know, it takes a _portkey_... a _bloody portkey_ to come here every time you need-"

Suddenly she turned at him, pointing her index finger against his chest. "I need you to go to my apartment in London. You must find the book. It must be there somewhere, I'm not sure where exactly, but I know that I haven't given it away." George stared at her in disbelief, but she continued in a quick, firm, ordering tone: "Then you must talk to Rebecca. You must tell her to keep those books at any cost, I don't care how you'll do it, but I'll want to have a look at every single one of them once I can get to the Ministry myself. She mustn't-"

"Whoa-whoa! Stop right there!" George said, not sure whether to be amused, angry or really pissed off.

Helen looked at him surprised. "What?"

"What? Are? You? Talking? About?"

"Which part didn't you understand?" She asked, getting a little impatient, as she caught the sight of the watch. It was already late afternoon, she had to make herself ready for the evening. She blushed slightly at the thought, but George pulled her out of it again.

"First – which _book_? Second – which _books_? Third," he pointed at the coffee table, where at least twenty volumes lay spread open, "don't you think you have enough? And why does Rebecca have _any_ of your books? And most of all – even if there _was_ some sense to this gibberish of yours of which I'm not sure... – perhaps you should rest for a few days," he said, then turning to Angelina he added: "She took quite a blow from Rodolphus, it might have done some-eh..._ more_... damage," then facing Helen again, he asked gleefully at last: "Why-why-why should I do _any_ of it?"

"It's important," she replied, ignoring his remarks, "first – I need the book. With the dark rituals, which I used to-eh... you know which." She was talking now more calmly, but very persistently. "Second – Rebecca is handling a few books, no need to get into detail now, she'll know. You just tell her that she _mustn't_ give them away. And," now she put on the most innocent face she could manage, fluttered her eyelashes, and said in a sweet voice, "you ought to do it, because you're a good man." Another flutter. George seemed disgusted by this statement. "And because I'm so helpless right now." Another flutter, but he remained unimpressed, or at least pretended to be. Helen sighed, giving up the act. "Wouldn't just a simple – _it might be really important_ – be enough?"

"_Might_? Oh, you'll have to do far better than that. 'Cause _it might be important_ also translates as – _it could also be a huge waste of time, so let's task George with it_ _in any case_," he said sarcastically.

"George," Angelina interfered now, seeing that George was playing hard-to-get. "It's not like you have tons of work on your desk waiting for you... And I can help you, well, at least with the first part."

"Right, right," he agreed at last. "But you'll be paying for this, Miss. Don't know how yet, but... you will."

Helen smiled at him, knowing he didn't really mean it. Or so she hoped.

"I'll have a look at it next week then," George said wearily.

"Ehm- it can't wait that long I'm afraid," she squeaked in a small voice, and George threw her a nasty glare, but something about his expression was revealing that he had expected the exact reply. "Sorry, please, get into it as soon as you can," she added appeasingly.

"Fine," he replied, "but I can't promise you anything... Charlie's coming over from Romania for a few days and Mum has summoned us all to a big family reunion," he added rolling his eyes.

"Sounds like fun," Helen said and George with Angelina noticed that she was again elsewhere in her thoughts already.

"Yes, sure," he grinned, "we best go know. I'll be back soon."

"Yes, thank you," she moved with them towards the door.

"Take care," Angelina gave her a short hug.

"You too, bye."

Giles was meanwhile sitting alone in his office, browsing the old records in the watchers diaries to read some more upon Drusilla and Angel. But there was barely anything new in them, and the reports on Angelus and his ravaging before Drusilla's time were making him rather sick and he wasn't sure he wanted to read about the misdoings of the vampire, besides there seemed to be no point in it, as Angel had a soul now and had become "good", or as good as vampires go. And above all he had no idea what he was looking for: though Buffy's dream did cause him a slight discomfort, there wasn't much for him to start on, her vision seemed too vague, too general albeit unsettling, yet without anything specific to pick up – _Drusilla killed Angel,_ yes, surely it must have been an unpleasant thing to dream, but then – how often did he himself have dreams of the most vivid, disturbing sort about stuff just like that? It was too common, he thought, not at all unusual given what Buffy and Angel had been through especially in the past few weeks.

Still, he skimmed the diaries dutifully only to find out that – after having travelled through places such as Berlin and Sankt Petersburg – the last mention of Angelus in them was from the late 1897 in a small town called Făgăraş in Transylvania, where together with Darla he was responsible for the violent deaths of several people. Then his name suddenly disappeared from the records.

_AN: Thanks for reading and please review, comment, anything, any parts, previous chapters. Although I'm writing this because I enjoy it, a review may be very helpful to motivate me to updating more regularly :D_


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

_AN: Next bit. Enjoy. I can't seem to come up with new titles for the chapters, so this one's just nameless. Suggestions are welcome :))_

After George and Angelina had left, Helen took a bath, still pondering over her previous idea that George's and Angelina's exchange brought into her mind, then she made herself ready for the evening.

It felt exciting, preparing for a date yet again, after all these years. She put on a black dress that reached just a few inches above her knees, with ¾ sleeves and a boat neckline, then slipped into black flat shoes. The black colour made her appear quite pale, but after a glance in the mirror, Helen nevertheless approved and decided that it actually didn't look that bad – _I'll just turn off the lights, that should do the trick, _she thought.

It was long past seven in the evening when Giles finally allowed himself to put the futile research on the ever so vague dream of Buffy's aside, telling to himself that until anything more precise occurred, there was only so much he could do. On his way home he bought the stuff for dinner, and remembered that he still needed a present for Buffy. He frowned, looking around desperately as if waiting for a suitable present to fall into his lap from somewhere as he had no idea whatsoever. There he spotted a music store few metres ahead. For a moment he hesitated, then slowly walked over and peered in through the shop-window. He saw a young man, the shop assistant talking to some customers. He looked him up and down and after he had decided that the man didn't appear to be a chaos-worshiping maniac, he finally entered. Ten minutes later he stepped out with a small gift-wrapped package, put it in his bag and hurried home. Although he promised to himself not to think of what the evening might develop into, he couldn't keep his mind off it, the touch of Helen's skin the previous day, her tiny ruby lips upon his, all that and more would pop into his every thought at some point and a wave of sudden heat would creep over him every time that happened. He felt an odd mixture of pleasant anticipation and fear, panic even. It's been too long since he's been with a woman like that, _in a sober state anyway_, he thought. Immediately, painfully, he remembered the orgies during his London years, with Diedre and the others... she was very beautiful back then... before Eyghon had come to claim her and now she was dead, just as the rest of them, except for Ethan of course.

And then there was Natasha, his colleague at the museum, with whom he had spent two nights, although he could only remember the first one of them, the other time was rather a misfortunate event, not to say a complete catastrophe, after a Christmas party of the whole museum staff, where his father was re-established into his office, and Giles got so drunk, as it seemed the only way to endure all the praising odes on his father he had to listen to... The next morning however was the most embarrassing he had had in his whole life... He had managed to suppress the memories of it too, but now it came back – the look on Natasha's face on the next day when she came to hand in her notice... Giles shrugged and close his eyes, still getting goose-bumps at the picture. _Well, on the bright side_, he thought, _it probably can't get any worse_.

While ascending the stairs to his apartment, Giles could perceive a strange smell. It wasn't particularly bad, more like candy or a chocolate cake with rather strong christmas-y spices. It also smelled a bit burnt. He sped up as it seemed to be coming from behind his own door. When he entered, there was a thin vapour coming from the kitchen, sneaking about through the rest of the apartment. Helen was sitting in the living room in an armchair, wearing his apron over a black dress. She was louring over some books, biting her lip.

"Hello," he spoke as she didn't seem to have noticed him before. She cringed. "What-uh... what's going on?"

"Oh, hi," she replied and flushed a bit at seeing him. She gave a quick stolen look over her clothes. Only then she noticed the thin smoke. "Can you smell something burnt?" She asked frowning. Then her eyes widened. "Oh, Merlin's eyes!", she cried out and ran into the kitchen, "I forgot! Oh no, no, no, no, no!" She knelt in front of the oven, from where the smoke was coming and opened it, fearing what she would find inside.

"What on earth is going on?" Giles asked as he put away his things and came over to her. An open cook-book laid on the counter.

Helen was staring at a large black pile which she took out from the oven, a sombre expression settled on her face. She didn't dare to look at him. All she had wanted was to bake a simple little cake, something like brownies, it _really _didn't look that difficult in the book. "Any chance you could go out and come back in two minutes, pretending you saw nothing while I efface this mess and solemnly vow _never_ to bake again?" She asked in a small voice.

Giles smiled softly, and helped her scrape off the dark mass of what could have been a delicious cake only an hour earlier into the bin. Feeling like a loser in an epic battle Helen finally put off the apron and humbly handed it over to Giles – a clear gesture of acknowledging defeat -, then threw herself resignedly into a chair, while he began to unpack his shoppings in order to prepare their dinner.

"Don't be too hard on yourself, it could happen to anyone," he said casually, while chopping some vegetables.

"Sure," she murmured, clearly not convinced, then her eyes fell upon the cd that Giles had just unpacked. It was _Best of the Beatles_, gift-wrapped. "Hm, I thought you've already got everything from them," she said more to herself.

He turned around to see what she was talking about. "Oh, that, it's for Buffy. Tomorrow's her birthday. I thought she might need some musical education as well. There's still hope that she's not become yet entirely deaf by that meaningless noise she usually listens to."

Helen had to grin, he could be so British sometimes...

"I almost bought-uh... _Don Giovanni_, yet I wasn't sure whether it's good, or if you like it, so-uh... I didn't." He spoke , looking a little flustered.

She shrugged. "Good. I'm not much of an opera-fan anyway."

"Thank God," he said sounding more relieved than he had intended to.

"There certainly is good stuff out there, but... Have you ever wondered why there had been no English opera between Purcell and Britten?" She asked, Giles shook his head. "You see, English were the only ones to recognize that human voice simply wasn't made to be singing at such heights as E6, that kind of singing wasn't natural so thankfully they spared us dozens of other cheap and cheesy tragic stories with tenors in love with sopranos and baritones plotting against them." Giles paused in his chopping, looking somewhat amused at her nagging, bitter tone – clearly she still yet had to overcome her baking failure. And as if she herself realized how that sounded, she added sheepishly: "Ok... now I sound like my father I guess."

He smirked and said without much thinking. "You sound quite like _my _father."

Helen raised her brows: "Is that a good thing?" She asked half joking.

Giles gave her a short smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, then dropped his look and turned his back to her to continue the dinner preparations without answering.

She watched him for a while, biting her lip, thinking whether to bring up the subject again. "Don't you want to see him again ever?" She asked bluntly and immediately gave herself a mental slap. _So much for a subtle approach_...

Giles stopped chopping and began to rummage in a cupboard looking for a pan. He could feel her gaze on his back. He slowly turned, holding a pan in one hand. "I-uh... not exaclty. Not-uh... I wouldn't say _ever_, just-uh..." He took a deep breath, his expression hardened, there was coldness in his eyes as he spoke: "Right _now_ I feel like I don't want to see him ever again, yes." He looked directly into her eyes and saw a trace of something, shock perhaps, fear in them, he wasn't sure. "I hope time will change my attitude." He added more softly.

Helen nodded and squirmed a little on her chair. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to poke in it." Giles smiled at her again and eased a little, returning his focus back towards the dinner.

"I just wonder... your father is your only, close family and you have no contact with him, surely he must be longing to see you," she said, her voice low and her tone cautious.

"He's not my only family. I have a mother too," he said almost defiantly. _And a pair of lunatic aunts..._

"Whom you haven't seen since when?" She asked innocently.

"You have no contact to your uncle and he's your only family," he replied dryly, knowing too well how lame that had to sound.

"Yes, well, you see the difference is I don't actually _know_ my uncle, we've never met, there is no bond between us... whereas your-"

"Yes, I wondered – why is that? How is it that you've never met him?"

Helen glared at him. "Don't change the subject." She said reproachfully.

He looked at her resigned, putting the pan on the hotplate. "I am just... I am afraid that if I were now to see him, the meeting would end up in a disaster."

"How so?"

"I-I... given the anger and the rage that comes up every time I merely think of my father, I would probably be yelling at him all the time, cursing and swearing and what not... you see I doubt it would be a pleasure to any of us."

"Hm," she nodded thoughtfully, and just when Giles thought she would leave the matter alone, she spoke: "Maybe that's what he wants... I mean perhaps he wouldn't-eh..." she paused again, thinking how to say it, "sometimes there is nothing worse than silence, sometimes the most awful swearwords and the most terrible shout are more welcome than not talking to someone at all. Silence can be more punishment than anything else." She minded not to sound like some book of wise proverbs, but rather casually, if not lightly.

"Well, good," he said stubbornly, "in that case we're on the right path. As he doesn't deserve any better." And when she was about to object, he said louder, taking the pan off the plate: "So, dinner's ready." He really didn't want another evening spoiled by his father.

Helen silently consented into letting it go for now and helped him set the plates and everything for the dinner to be served. Then she went to the living room to put on some music. _Something to soothe his mood, and to undo the damage I might have done so far_... Her finger stopped on the Satie-cd she had given him for Christmas. _Right. _Danses de travers_ always work with me_...

She returned back to sit on one of the stools, while he poured some wine into their glasses.

They raised them and Helen felt like it was the moment for a small toast: "Thank you again. For everything... letting me stay here, saving my life..."

Giles smiled, shaking his head: "I didn't exactly. I got knocked out and hit my head... again... seems to happen quite often actually."

"Well," she blushed a bit, and took a sip from the red wine, "that counts too."

For a moment they ate in silence, the meal Giles had prepared was delicious and Helen was just thinking how she could really get used to his cuisine, when he turned to her:

"So, now tell me, how comes you have never encountered your own uncle?" He asked, his tone was suggesting that he didn't really intend a serious, dreary conversation rather than wanted to get even with her for the previous unwanted talk.

She merely shrugged, thinking for a moment before helping herself to some more of the salad and chicken: "I don't know, it just... never happened," she answered laxly, the topic was far less delicate to her.

"But you admit it's somewhat-uh... unusual."

"I guess," she replied shortly to tease his curiosity for a little longer. It really was a boring tale, he'd be disappointed soon enough.

"So? What's the story?" He asked, his voice just a tiny bit flirty.

She sighed: "It's not that spectacular really. More like a plotline in a soap opera. The story is – my grandparents, my mother's parents didn't approve of my father, they thought he was a muggle, which by the way my mother believed as well by that time they got married, and so she broke any relations to them and left with my father."

"And you never met your grandparents either?"

"No. But that's hardly a loss. Given how they treated my mother they had to be atrocious people," she spoke and for a moment a satisfied look settled on Giles' face for he thought that the contempt she showed in her voice was exactly what he felt towards his father.

"But in such a small community as your wizarding one... it seems almost impossible for you to never have met anyone of your family," he wondered.

"Had we stayed in England and gone to Hogwarts, then certainly. But my parents left the country for good. First they went to Italy, then father took us to Romania. David would go to Hogwarts later and indeed he knew my cousins there. Josephine and-eh... what was the boy's name... Arthur I think. They were about the same age. They became friends even. But I never met them."

"Romania?" Giles asked puzzled.

"Yes. I was four when our mother left us and father decided to move elsewhere, and so we landed in Sighișoara, a charmingly charmed medieval place... Well, we didn't stay in, but around, in the outskirts. When you have little kids with magic, it's wiser not to live in town."

"Hm," Giles said, he couldn't really imagine three little wizards rampaging in the neighbourhood. Then he remembered the family-photograph that he saw in Helen's bedroom.

"But it was a beautiful place to grow up in, right in the heart of Transylvania. Every time I look back I must think how lucky we were to spend our childhood on spot like that." A dreamy smile played about her lips. "In late summer we used to fly on our broomsticks over the forests, the colors below were breathtaking... Once we saw a dragon. God, I was so scared I swore I'd never fly there again..." She laughed into her glass of wine and Giles was watching her, fighting the urge to kiss her right now. "But of course a few days later we were back in the air, hoping to spot it again, but it had moved by then."

After finishing their dinner they moved to the living room, both a little nervous.

"What did Snyder want from you by the way?" Helen asked, glad to have found a topic. "Gave you a hard time?"

They sat down.

"Actually," Giles frowned. He had forgotten all about the queer meeting with the principal. Now he had told Helen about. Just as he expected, she too found it very peculiar.

"That is... unprecedented to say the least," she murmured. "Not that you wouldn't deserve it, having risked your life to save the school on endless occasions, yet..." She shook her head, still bewildered.

"Well, he doesn't know about that, does he? Nor about Buffy thankfully... Or about anything else really... tedious little man," he muttered.

"Hm... I wonder what he will do to me when I return next week. He'll probably bite my head off. Or fire me," she said gloomily. The threats that Snyder had spoken out to her a week ago sounded in her head.

"Actually," Giles began again as he remembered Principal's last words this morning _I think I'm in love with her... _Helen turned at him curiously. "Nothing." He shook his head, trying to banish the memory. "He-uh... he's not been quite himself. Perhaps he won't even notice you were gone... He's been acting very strangely."

She stared thoughtfully into the fireplace. "Well, something's a miss, I can tell."

"Don't think about it now," he said gently. "I'm sure we'll find out soon enough." And he leant closer to kiss her at last. She closed her eyes, a pleasant dizziness overcame her at the soft touch of his lips. He was taking his time, very much unlike those previous hungry kisses they had shared before. It was almost as in a slow-motion. She was glad to be sitting though, for she already began to feel her knees getting weak and shaky... _This kiss is of the silent-killer-sort, that's sure..._it flashed through her mind a second before a loud pop echoed through the room and they both flinched and jumped off the sofa as thanks to the experience of the last few days rather horrid associations were connected with that very sound.

"Oh, sorry, bad timing," George murmured and for a short moment he appeared indeed a little embarrassed.

Helen stared at him, relieved, amazed, yet also a bit angry. This was clearly becoming an irksome vice of him that would need to be stopped soon for all their sakes.

Giles recovered first. "Right... I suppose we should be used to it by now," he said, the smile on his face looked rather tensed.

"You are so lucky I can't do magic right now," Helen said at last, shooting dark glances at the young wizard.

"Am I? Well, that's not a very nice thing to say to someone who had just spent the entire night searching for a certain blasted book – as I was asked to do as soon as possible." He said reprehensively and held out a large heavy looking volume.

It took Helen a second to realize what it was and another one to remember what part that black leathern cover had played at some not too far away point of her life.

"You found it," she said and walked to George. It didn't escape Giles, though he had no idea what this was all about, that her hand was shaking just a little as she raised it to take the book from George.

"I also called on Rebecca right away, since the portkey threw us at the Ministry anyway. I passed her your rummy cryptic message." He said and walked passed them to sit in one of the armchairs.

She watched him in disbelief as he made himself comfortable, showing absolutely no inclinations to leave anytime soon.

"And?" She asked in a shivery voice as she was trying to stay calm.

George's eyes were laughing as she caught his look and she knew he was doing this on purpose, teasing her and having his revenge as he had promised her earlier when she had ordered him with all those tasks.

_Hm, let her sweat just a little bit longer_, George thought and turned at Giles. "Oh, I am utterly starved now, I haven't eaten since this morning as there was no time between all the assignments I was doing for Helen... Could I-eh...," he put on an exhausted, almost suffering, tormented face, "bother you for a small snack at least, Mr. Giles? I'm afraid I won't even have enough energy otherwise to disapparate back."

Giles shot Helen a questioning look, not sure what to do. He was rather hoping that one of them would tell him what was going on. She gave him a short nod indicating that he best comply with George's request.

"Oh, and a cup of coffee would be most appreciated," George added loudly as Giles went to the kitchen to fetch some cold supper from the fridge.

"And? What did Rebecca say?" Helen asked again, her voice on the edge.

George pretended for a moment to be watching Giles in the kitchen and finding his doings there terribly interesting, then turned at Helen with raised brows as if only now he realized he'd been asked a question. "Oh! Quite right. Rebecca... Weeell," he drawled, then made a dramatic pause which drove Helen crazy. "She was rather surprised when I told her," he continued in a casual tone, sounding just a little smug. "Well, no more than she was surprised to see me in her office I suppose."

"And?" Helen asked, this time she sounded rather bored, resigned.

"She said she'd keep those books. She cannot promise anything though, but she said she'd be glad for any help and advice as to how to deal with them anyway."

"That's good," Helen said, somewhat appeased now by this statement.

Giles reappeared in the living room, offering George a cold plate. "Are you talking about the council books that are currently at the Ministry?"

"Yes, we are," she replied, then remembered the book George had brought from her London apartment. The Latin title _De potestatibus infernis diu extinctis habitis_ shone in golden letters on the cover. She gave it to Giles. "Here. Is this one of yours too?"

He took it, stared at the title for a moment, recalling himself her story which he had been told just yesterday, then opened it and soon indeed found the infamous stamp of the Library of the Watchers Council. He barely nodded before returning the book to her. She opened it once more and seemed to be looking for something in its list of contents.

"What-uh... what is the matter? Why did you ask that girl to hold on to those books?"

She was frowning over the pages of the ancient volume that looked remarkably well preserved despite its age, apparently she couldn't find what she had been expecting. "I would like to have a closer look at them. I-eh...," she war murmuring, her eyes still fixed on the book, "... I had an idea today that George and Angelina planted in my head earlier..."

"We did?" George asked doubtfully.

"Yes, something you said actually, earlier right before you went to my place you were joking with Angelina about it and-"

George looked horrified. "You mean to tell me that you assigned me to do all that because of some joke I told to my wife? !"

Helen ignored his shock. "You were talking about turning into a vampire and you said – _an immortal wizard_ – which got me thinking... I'm quite certain I've never encountered any reference to a wizard who would have become a vampire. And thanks to Hermione I had read quite a lot on that topic. I recall reading somewhere that it has to do with the wizarding blood. Now as much as I resent that expression, there seem to be a few peculiarities about wizards that would indicate that it nevertheless might be justified."

"What?" George asked perplexed. "Was that English?"

"What do you mean?" Giles could mask the fact, that he too didn't understand much either, far better. Not to mention that Helen found him too adorable when he looked confused.

She took a deep breath to undertake another assault. She knew she was usually babbling when she got excited. "I must check my books again. I was looking in yours," she pointed at the several pieces lying on the coffee table, "but there isn't much about wand-magic of course. From what I remember still, it's not possible for a wizard to become a vampire on the-eh... let's say _orthodox_ way..."

Now Giles had an idea where she was going with it. "You think the Death Eaters might have wished to become vampires?"

She shrugged, wondering herself about the question as she heard it now said out loud.

"Death Eaters wanted to be vampires?" George repeated incredulously and the way _he_ said it, she had to admit it, it sounded pretty cheap. "Why on Earth for?"

"To be immortal?" She suggested. George shook his head unconvinced. "Common, it's a serious thought. They would be unbeatable in the battle-"

George looked at her, still shaking his head in a mocking disbelief. "Helen," he said in a pitying voice, "it's the _lamest_ idea I've heard in a long time. And I see Ron every day."

"Now hang on," Giles spoke. He didn't want to dismiss it quite yet.

"It's not that absurd," Helen tried to defend herself.

"It is actually," George insisted and when she was about to interrupt him, he said louder: "Hello-oo, remember horcruxes? Those things Hermione sawed our ears for weeks with after the battle when she was explaining how Voldi would make sure to stay immortal? Alright, it didn't quite work out well for him in the end, but still – see my point? He had horcruxes, anyone could have done the same. Wouldn't that be a far better and safer way to getting immortality than letting some demon suck at you and becoming a soulless creep?"

Giles was now looking from the one to the other, his imagination was working hard trying to picture what these _horcruxes_ might be.

An unwilling "Hm" was all Helen could offer as an answer.

"Plus you just said yourself wizards couldn't turn into vampires," George added matter-of-factly and with a satisfied _problem-solved_-expression on his face he leant back in his armchair.

"But that's just it," Helen caught a new wave, returning her look upon the index of the dark volume in her hands. "I could swear I'd seen a description somewhere in here of a ritual that would enable a wizard to..." Her voice trailed off as her fingers were tracing the keywords of the index. After a while however she angrily shut the book with a loud noise. "I was sure it had to be in this one..." She plunked it down on the coffee table to the other books and threw herself in the other armchair opposite George while Giles stood leaning onto his fireplace, watching her biting her lip, before she said, rather to herself: "Perhaps it was in one of the other pieces we had found at Traverses'."

Giles' eyes widened.

_AN:_

_Thanks for reading. Pls. review, you know what they say – it takes days, weeks even to write a chapter, it takes only a minute or two to post a comment. I'd appreciate very much, also I'd like to know what you're enjoying or not so much about the story, the characters, the plots. Any point in continuing? :)_


	27. Chapter 27: Of spoiled evenings and

Chapter 27

Of spoiled evenings and coming parties

_AN: Next, very short bit. I'm never sure what you'd like more – an update coming more often or a long chapter every now and then, so share :)_

_AN: Nothing new in the replaced chapter 27, I only changed the spacing between some paragraphs and corrected one-two spellings, sorry for that. So in case you've already read it before, the content's still the same._

* * *

><p>"What?" Giles asked, pulling off the fireplace he had been leaning onto.<p>

"I don't know," Helen replied resigned, "I was quite certain it was in this book, but... it must have been somewhere else. I had so many in my hands during those auror-checks-"

"No, I mean – what did you say where did you find them?" He asked, his voice was urgent now.

She looked at him in surprise. "Hmm..., at one of the estates, we had been checking the houses and the properties of all of the Death Eaters, about-eh...," she was trying to remember, everything from back then seemed to lie so long ago, although it's only been over two years, "fifty or sixty households-"

"The name, what was the family's name you just said?"

She looked confused now, not seeing what a name of a wizarding family would mean to him. "The Traverses, they're one of the pure-bloods. The house of Secundus Travers was where I found the book, along with dozens of other suspicious volumes and objects."

"Secundus," George murmured shaking his head in amusement, "those freaks... Do they always have to punish their kids with such imbecile names?"

Helen laughed. "Yes, I'm afraid it's part of their strategy to set themselves apart from the rest, from the commons, the _wizarding plebs_ as Lucius Malfoy called it. The Traverses always used to give their children Roman numerary names, so in each generation you'd find one Primus, one Secundus, Tertius, Quartus-"

"One Quentin," Giles finished, his gaze was blank as Helen turned at him. She was about to correct him to _Quintus_, but something about him startled her. Suddenly there was this cold, hard expression on his face that she remembered from the time when she had come to tell him about her nightly encounter with Darla and Angel, there was the same faint trace of bitter, even cruel smile, as if he had just recognized some terrible truth that had been out there for a long time, and felt fooled by it, betrayed.

"Hm," George, who had been oblivious to their silent exchange while munching his cold supper, spoke casually, "shouldn't it be _Quen-ti-n-usss_ rather?"

Helen gave Giles a questioning look.

"Quentin-uh... is a... vulgarized version of-uh... Quintus."

It took her a moment to understand. _Quintus_ or _Quentin Travers_. Giles had mentioned him several times before, yet Helen never picked it up, never made the connection. _Travers_ seemed to be a common enough name after all. But could it be a pure coincidence that the head of the Watchers Council wore a name worth of a member of a pure-blood wizarding family?

She opened her mouth to express her doubts, when suddenly the door was flung open and Xander and Willow burst in, breathless. Seeing the three people in the room they stopped abruptly and Willow seemed relieved, Xander rather disappointed and annoyed.

"You're here," he stated, pointing at Giles and still trying to catch his breath and sounding a bit huffish.

Giles looked from the one to the other, then said cautiosly: "Yes... I am aware of that... it is my apartment after all. Though nobody seem to care really," he added quietly.

"Then what's happened to your phone?" Xander asked.

"We tried to call you couple of times, there's something wrong with it, we were worried, you know..." Willow said nervously.

"I-uh... have unplugged it. For-uh... rather obvious reasons," Giles replied, giving all of the unwelcome guests a short look.

"Hey, _dudes_," George greeted them cheerfully with one hand, while his other just grabbed another piece from his plate.

"What is it that you wanted?" Giles tried to ignore the young man. _God, this evening is so not going how I imagined it._..

"And please tell us you're not hungry at least and don't need any _energy_ to leave," Helen added, glaring at George who pretended not to have heard the reference to him.

Willow and Xander looked at each other confused. "No... thank you," Willow said at last, not sure it was the right answer to the last remark. "We wanted to tell you that we will have to postpone Buffy's party tomorrow."

"What happened?" Giles asked concerned. "Is anything wrong with Buffy? She's not ill or something? Or is it because of her dreams?"

"No!" Willow shook her head vehemently. "No, we didn't _cancel_ it, Giles," she said, the shock at that abysmal assumption was clear from her voice. "We just decided to postpone it after long and careful considerations concerning the length of the preparations that are necessary in order for it to be entirely perfect," she explained.

Giles didn't seem to understand, so Xander said to clarify: "We won't start at five as we had agreed before, but at six."

Now Giles looked incredulously.

"And you have to make sure that she doesn't turn up there a minute too early," Willow urged him.

_Surely this is but a nightmare and I will wake up soon, hopefully_, he thought, collecting himself innerly, so that he wouldn't sound too harsh when he spoke: "And you couldn't wait until tomorrow, to pass me this-uh...", he took a deep breath, _bloody stupid fiddling message_ was pressing on his tongue, "... rather-uh... secondary information when we'd meet in the library?"

Willow wanted to defend them. "Well," then she looked around them, noticed Helen in a black, rather festive dress, the fire in the fireplace, the cosy, dimmed lights, the two glasses of wine upon the coffee table, and she turned red as she put the hints together and realized what she and Xander might have interrupted. And George obviously as well. "We wanted to call you to tell you, but-but... your phone," she pointed at the unplugged phone on Giles' desk.

"Yes, how could we have known you have unplugged it?" Xander jumped in. "Besides, how _could_ you have unplugged it? !"

"I beg your pardon," Giles said indignantly. Surely that was none of their business. He could treat his phone exactly as he chose to.

"We only meant," Willow looked at him apologetically, her voice almost pleading, she could see that Giles was getting mad: she clearly heard the cluck-cluck sound his tongue did before, "you know – not working phones – we kinda have had bad expercience with that." Her face turned into an anxious grimace that Giles had always found impossible to resist. "We were worried, 'is all."

He finally smiled faintly, the anger was fading.

"A-and we're leaving, like _now_," she hurried to say and shot Xander a meaningful look.

"What about you, George?" Helen turned at him. "Catching some fresh air after the supper might do you good. Wouldn't you like to _join_ them?" She asked pointedly.

"Wouldn't I?" George drawled. He was considering whether he had punished Helen enough now or not.

"Y-yes," Giles suddenly spoke, trying very hard to sound as if he had only Willow's and Xander's welfare on his mind, "i-if you could-uh... accompany them at least for a part of their way home, that would be-uh... that would be very kind. It is already quite late and Sunnydale-"

"Yes, I get it," George got up off the armchair, grinning, giving Helen the empty plate.

She said a quiet and meaningful "Thank you" that no one else except George could hear.

He glanced at her and said just as quietly to her "Don't do anything stupid, dear," while Giles was slowly walking with Willow and Xander towards the door.

"I'll call Buffy in the morning to meet me in the library at 5:30," he assured them. As a pretext he would tell her he might have discovered something related to that dream of hers.

"Great," Willow replied, then gave him one last beaten look. "I'm sorry we bothered you," she said sincerely.

"That's alright," he smiled. He thought it was somehow endearing that they had actually _worried_ about him.

Then finally George too reached the front door, there he bowed slightly to Giles, saying "Have a good night, Mr. Giles." Giles decided that he must have merely imagined the wink George gave him.

"Good night, Mr. Weasley, have a safe-uh... journey back."

* * *

><p>George walked with the two teenagers, they were – quite enthusiastically – telling him about the party they had planned for Buffy.<p>

"That sounds like Buffy's in for a great gig, 'ey?" He said.

"Yeah," Xander said proudly. "Hey, you should come too!" He stopped and looked at Willow. "What do you think, Willow? Wouldn't that be cool?"

Willow seemed reluctant. Given tonight she wasn't sure what Giles and Helen would say. She looked at George a bit flustered. "I don't know... Giles and Miss McGregor might-"

"What've they got to do with it? It's Buffy's party," Xander said what seemed obvious to him. "And it's not like we all have plenty of other friends to invite. Plus," he turned at George, "you guys already know about Buffy being a Slayer, so there would be no danger in exposing that fact, should anything go wrong," he said as if that was the end to it.

Willow was thinking it over. Yet Xander had his point. It _was_ after all Buffy's party. And having a couple of real wizards there... she smiled to herself... could actually be quite fun. "Alright then," she consented at last and looked up at George who had been watching them curiously.

"I would simply _love _to come," he said grinning. If only to see Helen's and Mr. Giles' face, he thought.

"Great!" Xander exclaimed. "Could you bring some of the stuff you had told me about the other day? From your shop? You know, to spice things up a little."

"'course," George said casually.

"And bring your friends along, Hermione, and Ron," Willow reminded him.

"Ron's not my _friend_," he said appalled. "Come to think of it neither is Hermione," he murmured under his nose. "But... if I have to, I'll bring them. But I cannot promise you anything. Hermione usually prefers studying of any kind to parties... of any kind, and Ron might have to work, but... since that is really up to me, maybe I'll feel generous enough to free him for one night." He noticed that Willow turned and pink and appeared to want to ask something else. "What?"

"Could you... perhaps... I-I mean only if it's no trouble...", she began.

"What should be?"

"Could you bring Harry Potter?" She asked in a small voice, feeling a little embarrassed. She had been fascinated by the other Chosen One since she had read the article in the Daily Prophet about a year ago and was entirely excited to find out that George, Ron and Hermione were in fact friends with Harry. She was now thrilled by the idea that she could meet him. Surely Buffy wouldn't mind...

George smiled bemused, then shrugged. "I don't see why not. I'll call in on him... Although in that case I might have to bring along my sister Ginny as well."

"Oh?"

"Yes, I don't think she'd let him go all on his own to a party if she knew that there'll be a cute Sunnydale _gal_ eager to make his acquaintance," he said seriously, his eyes though were laughing.

"Oh," Willow turned even more red, not only because no one has ever before called her a _gal_, "I-I didn't... that's not...," she stuttered, she hasn't been thinking of if like that of course. Her interest in Harry was what one might call purely scientific, she was after all having a date with Oz.

"I know," George calmed her and chuckled. He didn't doubt for a moment that if Harry would come, he'd rather be in for a long session of questioning and talking about his Chosen-One-ness rather than for some extensive flirt attempts or coquettish stolen glances on the part of the redhead girl. "Although you should know he fancies readheads, Harry does." He added and enjoyed the horrified expression on Willow's face. "Only joking," he laughed, then turned more serious, she had suffered enough. "I'll see what I can do. I'm sure if he's not busy, he'll come."

"Uh-yes, good, a-and you can of course bring your sister-eh... Ginny... as well," Willow said to make clear once more that she had no romantic interests whatsoever in Harry Potter.

"And Angel will also be there," Xander changed the topic, "so you'll be welcome to test your magic on him... You could try turning him into a toad. Or make his face covered in boils." Willow hit him into his side.

"Sounds like fun," George said.

"Don't listen to him," Willow said reprehensively and slapped Xander gently on his arm again. "He's just jealous."

* * *

><p>When they were finally left alone, Giles excused himself for a moment and disappeared. Helen wasn't sure what to do, feeling a little awkward and wondering whether the evening could still be saved somehow, she had her doubts. Sighing heavily she headed towards the kitchen and there let on water into the sink and, feeling the frustration coming up from the completely spoiled date, she began to wash the dishes with her bare hands for the first time in her life. She was deepened in thoughts and didn't hear him returning.<p>

"I didn't think you could do that without magic." She was startled as she heard his voice right behind her and felt his warm breath on her neck.

She shivered impalpably, her stomach jumped up several inches, and she thought it was the most wonderful sensation. She gulped. "Well, I'd been watching you the other day, I didn't seem too...," she exhaled as he suddenly put his left hand on her waist and she could feel the gentle strokes of his fingers upon the fabric of her dress, "... complicated." The last word merged into the faint gasp she let out when the same hand moved a few inches downwards to rest on her hip as if it had always belonged there.

"Hm," is all she heard for reply, just before his lips briefly brushed the skin on her neck. She closed her eyes, feeling her knees trembling slightly. "Let's see," he whispered in her ear, "what have we got here," the sound of his deep voice alone was spreading excitement through her, she could swear she would probably melt down if he would only continue _talking_ like that. It wasn't the first time that she felt like that voice had effects on her no touch could arouse.

Then his right hand slipped between her waist and her right arm that was leaning onto to sink to keep standing. For a second he then dipped his fingers into the water and right afterwards Helen heard his smile. She furrowed her brows, puzzled, just as he pressed another kiss on her neck. Then he grasped her waist with both hands and turned her around to see her face at last. He was staring into her eyes, hesitating for a moment whether to say something or not.

Her heart was throbbing. For some reason she had never felt so attracted to him as right now, right there.

He pulled her tighter into his embrace, and bent down to kiss her on her lips, then looked at her sheepishly, his hazel-green eyes were beaming, there was so much affection in that look that she found herself almost unearthly happy to be looking in them.

Then he whispered into her ear: "You might try it with _hot_... water next time."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thank you for reading. I'm rather curious what you think, I couldn't decide myself how I found this last part or whether I'm still staying in character, esp. with Giles. So please leave a review, on anything, they make my day, also critics are most welcome too. <em>

_I'm also looking for some Betas, so if anyone would like to point out some mistakes, grammar, spelling to me, don't hesitate._

_So, hopefully until soon :)_


	28. Chapter 28: Moments of Happiness Part 1

Chapter 28

_AN: Next part. Anything you recognize belongs to Joss Whedon and the writers of Buffy._

_Enjoy and please review._

* * *

><p>Moments of happiness – Part I<p>

But before Helen could react in any way, Giles pressed his lips softly on hers. She gave in and wrapped her arms around his neck. Now this was an entirely different sort of a kiss than the one that got interrupted so unholy by George's arrival. It was more passionate, more... restless and urgent. When their lips finally parted to catch some breath, he looked intensely into her eyes, his were glowing as she had never seen them before. There also was an unspoken question, appeal in them. She turned her head towards upstairs to answer it and watched the corners of his mouth raise into a smile that was hard to place. Then his face turned earnest as he asked yet: "What about your leg? Are you sure-"

"Forget the leg," she whispered and silenced any further concerns with another kiss.

They hardly made it to the bedroom: In the middle of the staircase she bore him against the wall and began to work on his shirt, he managed to open her black dress on her back.

It came as an electric shockwave to her when his fingers touched her collarbone on both her shoulders, she had to slow the kiss to compose herself again, which he wasn't making any easier for her. Instead of quickly slipping the black cloth off her shoulders, he kept caressing her soft pale skin on the collar, occasionally slipping his fingers under the fabric as to tease her. It was agonizing in a way she didn't think was possible. Her own hands were still playing with the upper buttons of his shirt, without achieving much as it seemed impossible for her to concentrate on anything else than the tender, yet electrifying fumbling of his fingers. When she moaned at last in frustration, he finally with a quick movement pulled her dress off her shoulders and the heavy fabric fell easily to the floor, Helen let out a satisfied sigh and Giles sensed her kiss becoming hastier again, more passionate, more hungry, she opened the last button on his shirt at last, only to discover a disappointing undershirt beneath. She whimpered, but promptly began to pull on it to get it out of his trousers. Giles turned slightly to move away from the wall and with a gentle push indicated that they should continue upstairs. Unwillingly she broke off the kiss and pulled away a little and Giles noticed only now, when he looked down at her, that she was wearing a black corset. He forgot to close his mouth in amazement: it looked terribly old fashioned yet shamefully sexy. He has never seen anything like it on a woman, let alone on a woman he himself had undressed. So it was safe to say that he was no expert in these things but even he could tell that this was a piece of art – black satin embroidered with fine black and dark violet lace, and he even spotted a few tiny violet pearls. Its shape made Giles long even more to see what was hiding underneath. She was about to turn towards upstairs when he suddenly grasped her and lifted her to carry her the rest of the way up. Helen was so much taken by surprise, yet before she could take in the exhilarating sensation of being carried in his arms he was already laying her down on his bed and then watching her face for a moment. She was breathless and her eyes were widened. Giles' on the other hand were slowly wandering over her body from her face downwards, taking in the image that offered itself to him in utter fascination. Helen's mouth was dry, suddenly she was only too well aware that she was lying on his bed, he – bending over her, his lips slightly parted, a strange look on his face that she again couldn't quite place, she – not yet entirely exposed, but judging by the sparkles in his eyes he was about to change that very soon.

Giles' eyes stopped once more at the intriguing corset, only now he realized – to his delight – that the little pearls he had noticed before were actually marking the line in the middle of the piece where one was supposed to open it. This would spare him the often so embarrassing search for the right opening as he wasn't exactly a man of too much experience with female underwear. And the fact that he could open it at the front, right here beneath him, without having to fumble at her back, that it would immediately expose her breast... He gulped, then he finally dared to raise a hand and as if it was something very fragile and old, and afraid it would powder if he wasn't careful enough he first merely brushed his fingers over the fine embroidery to make sure it wouldn't crumble away under his touch, then he laid his both hands on her belly, and his fingers began to explore the curves and the surface of the exquisite lingerie.

Helen gasped at the first brief brush of his hand, again it spread through her whole body like a wave of excitement. And then when she felt his hands fondling all over her waist, she moaned again and grasped with one hand after his opened shirt to pull him closer so that she could kiss him. The touch of his hands, moving up and down her sides, caressing her waist and then wandering just a little bit downwards to fondle the bare skin beneath her hips, and her thighs... it was maddening. And then his fingers would always return to the tiny pearls – the buttons of the corset, each time playing a little bit longer with them.

"May I," he began whispering when for a moment he broke off the kiss to concentrate now entirely on the opening of the almost last piece of cloth that was keeping him from seeing her whole body in its full beauty for the first time, "may I-uh... just open it?" He mumbled, he didn't just want to tear it open and he still hasn't lost his control entirely, nor was all of his shyness gone, so that strangely – and he suspected the old fashioned corset to strengthen the urge – he felt it would be inappropriate to disrobe her without her consent.

Helen felt distracted, lost even for a moment, for not feeling his lips on hers and his tongue, then said quietly: "I wish you would."

Giles gave her a short, almost a shy smile then returned his focus towards the corset. With each other of the pearl buttons opened, Helen's heart would beat faster, her breaths would sound a little louder in the room, the heat from the touch overcoming her more intensely. Giles too was getting more excited every time the opening of a next pearl would expose a small strip of her bare skin. By the time he reached the last one his hands were shivering a little, but he wouldn't open it just yet. He saw her expectant gaze, noticed her chest mount up a bit in anticipation. He bent down again to press a slow, teasing kiss on her lips while his hands were caressing her neck, moving downwards little by little until they reached the line of the corset on her breast. Helen on the other hand was struggling with the belt of his trousers that just seemed to be sealed and would open only if some secret enchantments were spoken. Suddenly she heard a quiet pop-sound and felt the corset loosen around her torso entirely... and then his hands, his warm long gentle fingers were touching the bare skin on her waist for the first time, and it was beyond wonderful. She smiled and gasped at the same time and somehow at the same moment the stubborn belt on Giles' cord trousers gave in.

She sat up and pushed him aside. "You're still wearing too much," she murmured while climbing onto his lap.

"That's hardly my fault," he whispered as she bent down now to kiss him. The bulge in his trousers rose yet again as her breasts touched his chest briefly, before she straightened up again to work on the rest of his clothes.

He was watching her glowing face, stroking her knees on both sides of his waist. Her eyes, now almost black, looked as if they were gleaming, little fires burning in them, her lips were quivering, a few curly strings of her brown hair hung loose and added a perfect frame to the beautiful ivory face.

She pulled his undershirt out of his trousers and slipped her hands underneath to stroke possessively over his bare skin. It was fascinating, every time she reached a certain spot on either side of his hips, he would tense just a little bit and get goose-bumps and hold his breath until she moved along. _He was ticklish too_... she thought and a mischievous smile played upon her lips that didn't escape him so that he seized her hands just in time and Helen barely realized what was happening when a second later she found herself yet again – though not unhappy about it at all – lying on her back with him kneeling above her. Quickly he took off his shirts and threw it away, then again leant forwards to cover her breasts in soft kisses, slowly moving upwards. Helen had the impression that his fingers were everywhere, stroking her hips and her waist, circling across her belly, then fondling the skin on her neck which for some reason felt the most inebriating, especially when his index finger would draw a gentle line from beneath her earlobe agonizingly slowly down to her collarbone. She was so lost in that touch that the next one took her entirely by surprise: his left hand didn't leave her neck, but his right hand must have found a way downwards at some point because suddenly Helen sensed his fingers upon her thigh, moving in circles, occasionally fumbling beneath her panties, then sliding down at the inner side of her thigh.

It was too much, she had her eyes closed, hardly able to do anything herself apart from frantically burying her hands in his hair and opening her legs just a little bit more. Soon his left hand joined the other and with his tongue he was tracing the line of her panties on her underbelly. She let out a quiet moan and he took it as a final assent and gently pulled down the last piece of cloth she was wearing, before taking off his own underpants and setting up on her hips as carefully as possible. She stretched out her arms to pull him down into a kiss and murmured some indiscernible words, of which Giles only caught the last one - "..._ you..._", and when she lifted her hips, he moved to lie between her legs. He looked her in the eyes to find his own burning desire reflected in them...

...

Moments later they were laying in bed, facing each other, Helen held his face in her hands while his were stroking tenderly the skin up and down her side. On both their faces giddy grins and earnest stern gazes were appearing in turns, both signifying in a way the monumentality of this epic moment of the final fulfilment and how ineffably happy they felt about it. Words weren't necessary, not even after the second and the third time they had made love that night. Soon after that Giles would simply pull her tighter into his arms and eventually they would fall into a content, dreamless sleep they both hadn't enjoyed in a long time.

* * *

><p>When Helen woke up on the next morning, to her disappointment the rest of the bed next to her was empty. She sighed, then perceived the pleasant smell of breakfast from downstairs and moaned even louder. She crawled out of the bed and her eyes fell on Giles' shirt that he must have thrown away the previous night. She blushed at the memory the sight had brought back into her mind, then without much thinking she grabbed the shirt and put it on and moved towards the stairs.<p>

"Morning," he greeted her with a sheepish smile.

"Hey, _I_ wanted to surprise you with breakfast today," she said half reproachfully as she reached the kitchen.

He gave her an odd, disbelieving look and she knew what he was thinking, the image of the burnt cake from yesterday probably slipped into his mind as well. "Alright," she murmured, "maybe not."

"Never mind," he said and motioned her to follow him out of the kitchen, he was carrying a large tray with two cups, toasts and all sorts of things to make their breakfast quite a feast. He placed it on the coffee table in the living room, then disappeared yet again to fetch some plates, and Helen turned to the record player to put on one of his old records she hasn't heard yet. _Bay City Rollers_ it is, she muttered with curiously raised eyebrows as she randomly pulled out one of them.

She returned to the sofa, inspecting all the delicious things on the tray, when suddenly she sensed his piercing stare on her and turned around. To her surprise he wasn't looking into her face, but his eyes were widened a little and fixed somewhere on the lower part of the white shirt she was wearing. She became very aware that she wasn't wearing anything else as his shirt was long enough to cover all the delicate parts, yet she wondered whether he was just thinking about the same thing now. And when she noticed him swallow dryly, the answer was quite obvious. He laid the plates on the table too, but suddenly breakfast became irrelevant. He walked closer and gently pushed her onto the sofa, then bent down over her, his hands grabbed the shirt on her waist.

"I-uh... believe this-uh... belongs to me," he said amused.

"Does it?" She asked, though it was more a gasp, as his hands moved upwards to the upper button. It was her now who swallowed. "M-may I borrow it?" She asked nervously, feeling again the pleasant dizziness that his closeness was causing her.

"Uh-uhh, I am not sure how...," he kissed her shortly, "... I feel... about you...," another kiss, "... wearing... anything," he whispered into her ear just as she reached for the belt of his bathrobe... Yes, the breakfast would definitely have to wait.

* * *

><p>On her walk home a few hours later Helen was singing and humming to herself all the happy cheesy lovesongs she could remember and now and then she would grin or smile wildly at her passers by or just flush when she recalled some particular detail from the previous night and morning...<p>

With Giles they decided that he would call Buffy and tell her to meet him in the library at 5.30, but it would be her, Helen, who would collect her there and bring her from there to the old factory where he and the rest of the scoobies had meanwhile prepared the surprise party. It occurred to Helen that she had nothing to give to Buffy, but she got an idea.

She was walking the lane towards her house when she spotted the vast sea of flowers and bouquets spread all over her veranda. When she reached her front door she realized it was all red roses, hundreds of them everywhere her eye could see. She smiled confused to herself wondering when Giles managed to arrange this, but then she frowned, thinking that this somehow didn't look like him. Hesitantly she took the one bouquet that stood closest to the door and looked for a note. And indeed there was a little pink card in the shape of a heart. _No, whoever did this, it wasn't Giles_, she thought and opened it.

_I'll give you my heart soon, yours R._

Living on the Hellmouth, having experienced all the bizarre stuff she and the Scoobies had, it was no wonder that the first image that popped into her mind at reading those words was quite gross.

_Who the hell is R.? !_ She was pretty sure it didn't mean _Rupert_. She was still staring at the roses in mistrust when the phone inside rang. She opened the door at last and hurried to pick it up.

"Hello?"

Someone cleared his throat nervously. "Uh-, Miss-uh... McGregor?" A familiar voice greeted her, yet it sounded a bit odd.

"Principal Snyder," she replied, getting tensed, her heart sank, she was afraid what might come now, already bracing herself for another assault and a lecture on teacher's duties and zero absences.

There was silence for a moment, then he again gave this unnatural cough. "I-eh... I just wanted to know when-eh... when we can count on your return," Helen furrowed her brows. She hated to admit it but she was rather missing the grumpy undertone in his voice, without it there was something alarming about him, something... not right.

"Oh, I should be there on Monday," she hurried to say.

"Good," was the short, strange reply, no barking, no nagging, no cursing followed, nothing but an awkward silence.

"Listen, I wanted to say..., I know I've been making a lot of absences, but-", she began, feeling insecure by this unusual behaviour of his.

"That's fine, as long as you're back on Monday," he snapped and Helen sighed almost relieved to hear a trace of the old familiar Snyder.

"I will be," she reassured him firmly.

"Great. See you," he muttered and hung up.

Helen frowned at the phone in her hand, then noticed the missed calls on the display. Sixty-seven, and all from the same number that just called her. _How very weird_, she thought, then shook her head, she wouldn't let the little pesky man spoil this beautiful day for her. She went to her study to pick the present she thought she'd give to Buffy. Her house looked better, obviously George and Angelina had cleared most of the mess Rodolphus had left behind, but there still was a lot to be done, especially the sight of what used to be her piano was devastating, yet... not even that could wash away the bright grin off her face today.

* * *

><p>When Giles arrived at the old factory and parked his car, he could hear loud shrieks and shouts coming from inside. Reluctantly he walked towards the entrance, searching his pockets for some kind of a weapon, but then several laughs replaced the previous scary screams. With a wary face and having a bad feeling he pressed the doorknob.<p>

First there was this gaudy smoke everywhere around and the place smelled oddly. It took him a moment before he could distinguish any persons... But there they were... and there were definitely too many of them.

"Hey, Mr. Giles!" The red-headed George Weasley waved at him, grinning widely. "You made it too! How nice!"

Giles smiled rather unconvincingly.

"I hope I didn't spoil your evening yesterday, I am ever so sorry. Were you able to take off again at whatever I might have interrupted?" George asked and put on an innocent and anxious expression, and watched Giles becoming flustered.

"Uh-y-yes, thank you-uhm, we-we were, in fact," he cleared his throat again, then turned towards the group of several other people he didn't know and who were standing in a corner laughing heartily. "Who-who a-are those people?" He asked cautiously.

"Oh, let me introduce you," George turned around and motioned to Giles to follow him and walked towards the group. There was a young woman with long red hair and a pretty pale face with freckles, a taller man with just as long, but messier red hair and an earring in one ear as well as an eccentric necklace of what looked like scales of some large reptile. Next to him, talking to Oz stood another young man, whose face and the round glasses seemed familiar to Giles but he couldn't remember where he'd seen him. Yet when the man raised his head and turned his face towards George, Giles caught a glimpse of the peculiar scar on his forehead and immediately saw the mental headline above the man's head – _The Boy Who Lived._

"This is my sister Ginny," George was already pointing towards the girl who held out her hand, "my brother Charlie, and this is Harry, we have a Chosen One of our own, you know," he said when they stopped in front of Harry, who too gave Giles his hand to shake and politely replied: "Nice to meet you, sir."

"Hey, Giles," someone slapped him on the shoulder and he turned around to see Willow. She was smiling at him, though rather insecurely. "We thought at the last minute that we should invite the guys too," she nodded towards another corner where Hermione and Ron were twiddling with some decorations. "I hope you don't mind."

Giles wanted to say something about not being sure about all this, but he didn't get to, for there was a loud bang and an even louder cry and at the other end of the large hall a fiery sparkling dragon emerged out of nowhere, opened its huge mouth with a deafening roar, raised higher in the air and began to fly towards them at a terrifying speed. The girls were screaming, but just before it reached them the dragon dissolved into a beautiful rain of tiny multicoloured sparkles. They all burst out into a laughter. All but one as Giles noticed. Angel was standing aside and watching them, his face was even gloomier than usual.

"And that was a Norwegian Ridgeback, right, Charlie?" George yelled, looking smug and content. His brother nodded amused. "Charlie helped me with designing them, so far I have five different breads to offer, but now I'm working on the Ukrainian Ironbelly and that's a tough one..."

Giles left them and walked towards the vampire. He remembered Buffy's dreams and wondered whether Angel had been concerned because of them too.

"It looks like they all went into some trouble to prepare this," he tried to start a light conversation. "Buffy should be pleased, she deserves a little-uh... distraction I suppose."

Angel merely nodded.

"So, ho-how are you? Have you-uh... recovered from the trials of that-uh... ritual-"

"Yes, thanks."

For a moment Giles watched his tormented face, then said softly. "Buffy told you about the dreams, didn't she? I'm sure there's nothing..."

"Hm?" Angel turned his gaze away from the small group. "Yeah, me too," he said in a low voice.

Again silence fell between them and they were both watching the others rather abstractedly.

"I didn't know there'd be so many wizards here," Angel finally spoke and Giles was under the impression that he was trying his best to sound as casual as possible, but the fact was troubling him apparently.

Giles laughed slightly anyway. "Nor did I."

Behind them in a dark corner and unobserved George was sneaking up towards them, waving at Ron and Harry who were behind him following, both obviously unaware of his intentions.

"Psst, mates, come here," he whispered, "check this out." He raised his right hand holding his wand and pointed it at Angel. "I've tried it before, it's really weird..." He made sure that they were both watching, then murmured "_Impedimenta!_", yet a single blue strap of sparkles emerged from the wand and nothing happened. Ron and Harry exchanged confused looks. "_Confundo!... Imperio!... Oppugno!_" George shot several other curses towards the vampire, but nothing worked. He turned around and gave Harry a meaningful look, then turned back to try one more spell: "_Crucio!_"

"George!" Hermione appeared out of nowhere and shocked she stared at the older Weasley. "What on Earth are you doing? !"

"Pssst," George placed his finger on his lips to indicate that she should curb her voice down. "I'm just checking. Did you see it? The vampire is entirely immune-"

"You could have hit Mr. Giles!" She rebuked him whispering.

George rolled his eyes and ignored the remark. "What do you think about that? He can't be harmed with a wand."

"We'll see about that," obviously Ron took it as a challenge and took out his own wand to give it a try: "_Confringo!... Frange_!" After a while he gave up frowning and now both he and George looked at Harry expectantly. Harry hesitated.

"Oh, common, Harry, let's see what the Chosen One can wreak," George urged him, and Harry, a little unwillingly, pulled out his wand and under an incredulous glance from Hermione he too pointed it at Angel. "_Stupef_y." Again there was the blue flash of light, but no effects.

Harry shrugged. "It is strange," he admitted. For another five minutes they all kept trying all sorts of offensive spells they could come up with, Hermione watching them with a smug face.

"It _is_ strange," Ron muttered, glaring at Angel.

"And annoying," George nagged.

They seemed to take it as a personal offence, as a blow to their magical skills, since unlike Hermione they couldn't imagine other powers possibly being at work here.

"Let's try something else," suddenly Harry turned at the two brothers. "See those planks over there?" He pointed at a pile of wood lying on the floor somewhere between them and their target. A large narrow piece was on top with what looked like a little brick.

"Yes?" George asked and his face lightened up a bit.

They put their heads together and what had begun as a mere experiment to see how magic worked on vampires now turned into a mission to find a way, any way, to attack Angel and thus to re-establish their hurt wizarding honour.

"This is getting ridiculous," Hermione reproved them, but no one was listening to her. They had a simple plan.

Ron pointed his wand at the little brick, murmured some Latin words and the red stone flew up and quietly sat down at one end of the plank that was touching the floor while the other end was in the air. But before Hermione realized what they were up to, Harry was already pointing his wand at the free end of the wood, whispering: "_Oppingo_."

There was a soft whizz as the brick got pitchforked and a loud "Ouch!" followed immediately when Angel's hand jumped up to touch his head where something had hit him.

Ron, Harry and George exchanged satisfied grins, then George got up to his feet and casually walked past Giles and Angel, addressing the latter: "Sorry, pal."

Angel rubbed the back of his head in confusion, when Willow joined them. "Giles, shouldn't Buffy be here by now?"

He looked at his watch and furrowed his brows. It was already quarter after six and there still was no sign of Buffy or Helen.

"I don't like this," Angel said concerned.

"Psst, I think I hear her coming," Xander whispered as some noises from outside got through to them and indeed soon Buffy crashed in through the window, fighting a vampire. It however was no match for her and in a few seconds she plunged a stake through its heart and it turned into dust. Buffy exhaled wearily.

"Surprise!"

* * *

><p><em>AN: Not very happy about this one, especially the bed part, so sorry for that, once again it was a struggle with my limited English vocabulary, but still I hope you could bare it, if not enjoy it. I hope one day I might improve it. <em>

_Also a bit more action is in order for the coming chapters as you can perhaps imagine with the whole Angelus-thing lying ahead._

_Thank you for reading, please leave a review. You know they make my day. Any critics is welcome._


	29. Chapter 29: Moments of Happiness Part II

Chapter 29

Moments of Happiness – Part Two

_AN: Hi dears, background story here are the both episodes Surprise and Innocence, there might be some familiar quotes, again, all belonging to Joss and the writers of Buffy's._

_I am thinking – I'm not sure yet, but I might be starting a new entry for the sequel from here, because it's already got quite giant :) and this just looks like a good break, so if you want to read more, eventually look out for a new story-post or something like Third Man Part II. Unless of course you think this already sucks and it would be better for me to stop outright :) then let me know either way._

* * *

><p>They all turned around as Cordelia jumped up from behind a counter on which a large cake was waiting to be cut and eaten.<p>

"That pretty much sums it up," Oz said, still looking positively puzzled at what just happened.

"Buffy! Are you alright?" Angel asked, while Giles kept looking around.

"Where's Helen?" He asked, clearly worried.

But the metal front door went open at the same moment and Helen entered, carrying a heavy looking wooden box. Giles hurried to help her. "I thought you said you'd give her a book," he said while taking the box from her.

Helen didn't laugh however. "It's not mine."

"What is it then?" He asked when he had put the box on the counter next to the cake.

"I don't know," she replied and looked at Buffy. There was concern in her eyes, fear even. "The other one left it behind."

Buffy told them how while she and Helen were walking to this place they saw two vampires who had belonged to Spike loading something onto a truck, one of them was familiar to Buffy, she had seen him before, a little man with glasses who had stolen the DuLac cross from that mausoleum earlier, but he again managed to escape, though apparently he abandoned the strange box, whatever it was.

They were now all assembled around that thing, staring at it, wondering what might be inside.

"Well," George spoke loudly and lightly and Helen's head jumped up, she hadn't really noticed him being there, "I guess we'll never know until we've opened it."

* * *

><p>To say that the surprise birthday party didn't quite go according to the plan would be an understatement. The armored arm, as Xander had put it so well – "The Hellmouth's answer to 'what do you get the Slayer who has everything'" seemed to have choked not only Buffy's throat, but also the party mood of everyone present.<p>

Except perhaps George. "Looks like someone's been shopping in the Knockturn Alley... I bet Borgin and Burkes would have _killed_ for an item like this," he said gazing at the large arm.

But even he dropped the jokes and any attempts of cheering them up and lightning the things when Angel explained what the arm was part of and what it all meant: he guessed Drusilla was about to reassemble the Judge, an ancient demon, whose task it was to "purge" the earth and burn down all humans, returning the world to the vampires, monsters and their likes. Once reassembled the Judge would become invincible and no one would be able to stop him from fulfilling his terrible mission.

Despite Buffy's pleas and objections it was agreed at last that Angel would take the arm and bring it away, dispose of it in some far land where no one would find it, and prevent Drusilla and Spike to achieve the armageddon.

Buffy at least insisted on accompanying Angel to the docks, from where he intended to board a ship, as he didn't dare to travel by plane. The rest of the Scoobies along with the other party guests moved to leave the factory. It looked like they had a night full of research on this Judge ahead of them.

Only now as they all gathered in front of the abandoned building Helen noticed all the others, Hermione, Ron, George, Harry and Ginny, and... _what the_-... she flushed when her eyes met Charlie's. Panic rised inside of her and she shot Giles a quick look, but he was busy talking to Willow.

"Hi," Charlie said quietly, smiling a little, though she could tell he was feeling at least as uncomfortable as she was.

She smiled back, nervously. It's been a long time, and it was a one night stand, she had pretty much forgotten all about it, it had happened more out of a pathetic desperation rather than based on some actual feelings, she had repressed it afterwards, rather ashamed, and now the regret and the contrition were stinging in her chest anew.

"Hey Helen," someone slapped her on her shoulder, "look whom I have brought with us! I thought you might be pleased to see him," George said brightly and Helen felt her whole face burn up. _Did George know?_ She looked at Charlie in horror, but he shook his head imperceptibly, reassuring her that that wasn't the case. She exhaled relieved.

"Uhm- I can take some of you in my car," Giles interrupted them.

She looked up at him, feeling incredibly awkward standing there between Charlie and Giles. She had seen Charlie after that... event (_an ignoble mistake would be a better term_, she thought), at the wedding last summer and at Christmas at the Burrow, yet both times somehow they amazingly managed to avoid each other, going on as if nothing had happened. But seeing him here, in this entirely other world, in this other life of hers, was different. And seeing him standing next to this other man, who as she hoped was about to play a very important part in her life and with whom she had been making love a few hours ago, love that – unlike in Charlie's case – she would remember every detail of in two years time, she was sure of _that_... well, realizing this and seeing Charlie here and now brought up all the shame and remorse she had pushed back. "Ah- you go ahead, you take the kids and-eh... we'll walk, and then meet you at the library," she said and Giles gave her a warm smile and short nod, then turned away to drive to the school with Willow, Cordelia and Hermione.

The rest of them insisted on walking, Xander was deepened in a talk with Harry and Ron, questioning them about Hogwarts and this Knockturn Alley. They were closely followed by Ginny and George, who kept arguing about something, and Helen and Charlie were the last ones, keeping the group led by Xander at a safe distance so that they wouldn't be overheard.

"You're the last person I'd have thought I'd meet here," Charlie said nervously, "George only told me there was a birthday party of some new friends of his and I thought I'd come – anything is better than staying at home and listening to mother giving me another lecture on my hair or on why I don't return back to England," he smirked.

Helen grinned. "Is she still trying that? I don't envy you there," she said, feeling a little easier. "Look," she stopped suddenly, "I'm sorry about all that-"

But Charlie raised his hands: "Forget it," he said calmly, "we don't have to talk about it."

"We don't?" She asked, hoping that the easy manner he was acting with was not just pretended or him being cool. It occurred to her that despite that one night they had shared together she knew as much as nothing about this man. They had hardly exchanged more than a few polite sentences during the whole length of their acquaintance.

"We don't. It is forgotten on my part," he reassured her. "And it will not happen again."

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Don't get me wrong," he must have interpreted her expression in a wrong way, for he hurried to add, "it's not... that I find you appalling, not at all, I do like you, you're an... a very attractive woman, just..." He was gesturing with his hands fervently.

Helen laughed warmly. "Stop it, Charlie," she shook her head amused, "it's fine, same here-"

"And it _had_ been amazing," he turned red as he saw her eyes widen. "Actually," he cleared his throat embarrassed, "I don't remember that much," he confessed quietly, grinning.

She bit her lip, for some reason she felt the urge to burst out laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing, but then she flushed a little, reminding herself that it was nothing to be proud of. "I think we'll both agree it was a hapless slip-up. But none that would make the world tremble. Let's leave it at that. And let's hope no one will ever find out... Molly would probably kill me for knowing that I raped her son."

"Raped me? You wish," Charlie said pretending to be outraged, "it's not like it had been all _your_ idea," he added indignantly, though not too seriously, and Helen sensed it was his way of saying that she wasn't the only one to blame for what had happened, and she was grateful.

"Right. However, let's... throw it behind us," she said.

He watched her for a moment to see whether she really meant it and to make sure there were no hurt feelings left, then nodded, shrugged, and they both continued their way to the school. "Besides, I have a girlfriend now, so it's your bad anyway," he said dryly and Helen smiled into herself.

"No, it is yours actually," she said smug and they both grinned at each other, eased and relieved and happy that the awkward part was done with and they were in fact able to make jokes about it.

They talked about all sorts of things on their way, mostly about Charlie's new Romanian girlfriend Ileana and about his work and about dragons.

"So there is actually no chance of you returning to England and making your mother happy at last?" She asked.

He raised his brows as if an answer was unnecessary, but offered it anyway. "No, there isn't. And what would I do there? There are no free dragons in England, there'd be nothing to do for me."

"Hm, I guess not. Or you'd have to settle for something else, but I suppose after working with dragons everything else would seem quite dull to you."

"I wouldn't swap my job for anything, I'm happy where I am and at what I do, I wish mum would finally accept it," he sounded tired as he said that and Helen didn't wonder, she knew Molly could be very persistent and irksome on occasions.

"And anyway, it looks like we might have discovered a new species couple of weeks ago," he suddenly turned at her excited. "It resembles the Hungarian Horntail, but his wings are larger, and he is also a shade paler," he proudly pointed at the strange necklace he was wearing, made of dark blue scales. "We collected these after he had moved. Aren't they neat? Now we are tracing him, he seems to occupy an unusually large territory. You should have seen him, he's a real beauty."

"So it's a boy then?" she asked amused at the way how Charlie was talking about their new discovery, making it sound like it was a pet.

"Yesss. We named him Sándor. Anyway, we hope to find a female too once the mating season starts..."

The rest of the walk they spent talking about more dragons and about Romania, it turned out that Charlie now lived near the Transylvanian town Târgu Mureș, not too far from the place where Helen had grown up, and they even realized they had a few wizardings and even muggle acquaintances in common.

In front of the school the others waited for them.

"I think you best go back," Helen said to the six of them.

"Yeah, if you're getting an apocalypse, I'm out of here," George said.

"Couldn't we help somehow?" Ginny asked.

Helen shook her head. "I don't think so. Besides, when Angel manages to get that thing away, we should be safe, so there's probably nothing to worry about."

"You'll give us a call, if there's something though? Anything we could do?"

"I will," she said, then she remembered something and turned at Harry. Meanwhile Xander and Ron went in to tell Hermione they were returning and to get her out of the library before she would take roots there. "Harry, I wanted to talk to you, do you have a minute?"

"Sure," Harry raised his brows in surprise and they sat down on one of the benches.

Very shortly, trying to sum it up in the best possible way she told him about the idea of Death Eaters wanting to become vampires that had occurred to her yesterday and about George's objection, when he had pointed out that Horcruxes might have been a better way.

"So, I wanted to ask you as you had actually _seen_ the horcruxes, handled them and all, well, you know better what they really are... how they work... what do you think about it?"

Harry sighed, the question clearly was too wearisome for this late an hour. "Uff, I don't know, I think perhaps you should talk to Hermione about it..."

She nodded quickly. "Yes, and I will when I have some more time, but... you had this... bond – you'll forgive me for a lack of a better word – with Voldemort, so I wondered what you think – in your opinion – would he even have considered something like that? Becoming a soulless demon?"

Harry laughed shortly, and spoke with a certain irony in his voice that Helen wouldn't normally associate with him. "Well, funny you should ask that. You know he never struck me as much different – being as he was."

"Right."

"I don't know," he continued more mildly, "still I don't quite agree that horcruxes were easily made. You would have to split your soul into parts, and that's not what I'd call easy. It would make your soul very unstable, though I never understood what that meant exactly... But obviously only someone with a strong personality, or let's say... clear, consistent and solid, even simple in a way, plain in his character would be able to do it and still remain himself, I think."

"Hm," Helen was staring at the pavement thoughtfully.

"So, put like this it actually doesn't seem so very different from choosing the other path," Harry said wondering.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, as a vampire you'd lose your soul, as a horcrux – if you weren't careful, you could end up pretty much the same way."

Helen nodded slowly. "If you didn't get it right, you would only have a part of your soul left," she said thinking aloud about what Harry had just insinuated, "and that part might not have been the best one."

Harry shrugged. It was too late for a talk about things like that. "Anyway, seems to me that creating horcruxes means an unnecessary risk, while becoming a vampire...," he frowned appalled, "well, at least you know the deal, the outcome is... foreseeable."

In that moment Ron returned with Hermione, her face was all serious as she walked to Helen. "Merlin, I do hope for the sake of us all that they will never get this Judge together. Mr. Giles already found some records, not very encouraging... something about _no weapon forged can destroy him_..." Then she turned at Ron: "I don't feel right leaving now, maybe we should stay and-"

"And what?" Ron asked. "Help them _read_? They can do that on their own, Hermione, Helen said she'll call us, if there's anything."

Hermione seemed still hesitant, so Ron added carefully: "Besides, you have that exam on Tuesday coming, you don't want to go unprepared," he said quietly, but obviously he hit the right string. "I doubt they'll excuse you because of some silly ogre threatening to bring about the end of the world."

Hermione glared at him. "Fine. Helen, you'll call us... I don't know what we could do... it's just... it seems so surreal that we should go back to London while you all might be facing that horrid thing that could actually bring pretty much the end to us all."

George walked towards and Helen saw him roll his eyes, she suppressed a smile.

"You all go now. I'm sure we'll manage. I'll be in touch. Give my best regards to Angelina. Why didn't she come by the way?"

"Ugh, seems like pregnancy and portkeys don't go well together. Yesterday already, when we had returned to the Ministry from here, she was sick, and then after we took the portkey to your shore house this morning she spent the day bending over the toilet bowl, not a nice sight I tell you-"

"Thanks for sharing this with us, brother," Charlie slapped his younger brother on the shoulder and made a gesture with his hands to assemble them all, "now let's get going, it'll be morning soon at home and I want to get at least a few hours of rest before mum starts her next offensive."

They all said goodbye, hugs were given and hands shaken, and then all six of them disapparated at once and left Helen standing alone in the cool night.

She walked to the library, thinking about what Harry had said. Horcruxes or vampires? Then she remembered Quentin Travers and wondered what part he might have played in all this? Was he involved at all? Was he indeed a scion of the Traverses and a wizard? But that would, according to what Giles had told her before, go against the policy of the Council and the Ministry – no wizards were supposed to be part of the council ever. _And maybe for good reasons_, she thought gloomily.

Yet right now there were far more pressing matters to deal with. For the next twenty-four hours neither her nor Giles had had the time to think about anything other than the Judge. Buffy had returned, to their surprise with Angel. They had been ambushed by Spike and Drusilla's men, and the arm that Angel was supposed to bring away was stolen from them. They had spent the whole night with research as to how to eventually kill the Judge while Buffy and Angel had gone out to find out how far along Drusilla and Spike were with assembling the demon. On the next day Buffy had informed them that they needn't search for the other body parts any longer, because she and Angel had seen the thing in the old factory, put together and very much alive, ready to burn all humanity down very soon.

Buffy was also worried, because Angel seemed to have disappeared afterwards. Also there was something different about her when she entered the library that morning, Helen noticed, something about her air, something changed, but she couldn't tell.

And then, later that day, in the evening, just when they were about to despair as there seemed to be no way to stop the Judge, no weapon to be at hand strong enough to destroy him, something else occurred. Something that would change all their lives from then on, although none of them could predict yet how much: Angelus, the vampire without a soul, was back.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I hope you forgive me for not spending too much time on Buffy and Angel, but I didn't want to rewrite the well-known stuff. The chapter title doesn't make much sense then, but it's at least a reference to Buffy's and Angel's first time too.<em>

_Please leave a comment, critics, tips, anything._


	30. Chapter 30: Angelus

Chapter 30

Angelus

_AN: The next part, still here. Some quotes are here from the "Innocence" Episode that I felt I couldn't leave out – those belong to Joss Whedon._

Angelus was back.

It all happened very fast. Helen was just coming out of a bathroom, when the lights in the whole school went off. Then as she was walking back towards the library she heard voices.

"I got something to show you," she recognized Angel saying. There was something odd about his voice, but she couldn't tell what it was.

"Show us?" Willow asked.

"Yes. Xander, go get the others," Angel said again and Helen heard a short reply "Ok" and then footsteps and then she almost ran into Xander as she came around the corner.

"And Willow, come here," Angel spoke, again in this disquieting undertone.

Xander and Helen exchanged puzzled looks.

"What is it, Angel?" Willow asked.

"It's amazing," the vampire replied in an excited whisper.

Helen turned around to look at him. Because the lights were off and he was standing at the far end of the hall, it was impossible to see his face and it was unsettling her. Xander stopped now too and frowned.

"Willow-" He wanted to say something, but didn't get to anymore. All that followed then happened very fast. Suddenly Angel made a few quick steps towards Willow and grabbed her neck. At first Xander and Helen couldn't see properly what was going on because of the darkness the whole school was drowned in, but when a frightened yelp escaped Willow, they knew definitely that something was wrong. Xander seemed to have realized it faster.

"Don't do that!" He shouted at Angel.

"Oh I think I do that," said a gleeful, entirely alienated voice that was hardly recognizable as Angel's anymore.

Now Helen could at last see his face, as the moonlight fell from outside upon it. She froze.

"Angel-" Willow squeaked.

Helen searched her pockets for her wand, then pointed it at Angel with a shivery hand and whispered "_Stupefy_". There was a blue flash, but Angel's maniac laughter was all it caused. Immediately Helen sensed the surroundings getting blurry and she fell.

"Oh my God," Xander said as he saw the teeth of the vampire already only inches from the skin on Willow's throat.

"I have a message for Buffy," Angel spoke.

"Then why don't you tell me yourself?" Helen heard Buffy's voice and then Angel quickly turned around. If at all he was surprised to see her, he managed to hide it very well.

"Well, it's not really the kind of a message you tell," he said casually, tightening the grip of Willow's throat. "It sort of involves finding the bodies of all your friends."

While Buffy kept talking to him, trying to reason with him, desperate to find at least some trace of the old Angel she had known, Helen regained some of her focus back, though she still felt awfully shaky. "Xander," she whispered, and when he turned to her, she pointed her wand at his hand, murmuring "_Crucem_". Xander shrugged as a wooden cross materialized out of nothing in his left hand, but he knew immediately what to do with it, he gave Helen a short nod and began slowly sidling up to Angel and Willow.

...

A few minutes later, after Angel had fled, but not before pressing Buffy one last provocative kiss on her lips, they were all sitting in the library, shaken and speechless from what just happened.

"A-and we are absolutely certain that-that Angel has reverted to his former self?" Giles asked.

They all affirmed it, there were no doubts about it.

"Giles, you wouldn't have believed him. He came here to kill us," Willow spoke in a still astonished voice.

Helen was sitting on the chair opposite to her, holding a cold wet towel on the back of her neck to stop her nose bleeding. Giles stood behind her, one hand was resting on her shoulder, the other kept rubbing his forehead in a jittery way.

"If only we knew how it happened," he said thoughtfully after a while.

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked frowning, Helen sensed how she had got tensed at the question.

"Well, something set it off. Some-uh... some event must have triggered his transformation. If anyone would know, it-it should be you, Buffy," he said softly.

"I don't," she replied defiantly.

"Well, did anything happened last night-"

Buffy winced and her lips began to quiver. "Giles, please, I can't," was all she managed to say, before she turned her face away from them and ran out of the library.

"This is great. There's an unkillable demon in town, Angel's joined his team, and the Slayer is a basket case... I'd say we've hit bottom," Cordelia summed up their situation in her typical dry and indelicate way.

"I have a plan," Xander said and they all turned at him in surprise as no one would expect those words coming from his mouth.

Yet when he explained what he was intending to do – to rob the armory of the local army base outside the town, what should be easy enough for him as he still remembered every detail from the time when he had turned into a soldier at Halloween – they were quite impressed and could but nod and assent that he, Cordelia, Willow and Oz pull it through.

"I'm not sure what we should do about Buffy," Giles said, cleaning his glasses.

"I think we should let her be for now... unless they attack tonight," Willow replied looking at the swing door where Buffy had disappeared a while ago. She thought she might just know what had caused Angel's transformation and she shivered at the prospect of what Buffy must have felt when Giles kept asking her and Buffy realized that she herself was probably responsible for what happened.

"Yes, that might be for the best," Helen agreed.

"Besides, from what she told us the Judge is assembled but he still isn't at his full power," Willow pointed out.

"Yes, but that was almost twenty-four hours ago," Giles countered gloomily. "If only we knew what their plans are...," he added, sounding desperate.

Suddenly Helen raised her head. Her nose had stopped bleeding. "We could." She said and everyone looked at her. She turned at Willow. "Do you know where this factory is that Buffy was talking about – where they are staying with the Judge now? Spike and Drusilla and the other vampires?"

Willow nodded, puzzled.

"Good. I could apparate there, use the disillusionment charm upon me and sneak in to see what they're up to-"

"Absolutely not," Giles cut her off, sounding almost outraged.

Helen raised her brows and the rest of them gave him a questioning look.

"It's too dangerous," he added firmly as if that was the end to it, and began to clean his glasses.

Helen got to her feet. "It's not. They won't see me, and with any luck it won't take longer than a few minutes to find out about their scheme," she spoke softly, addressing him, while he kept cleaning his glasses frantically, shaking his head in clear refusal.

"No, I won't let you," finally he put his glasses back on and raised his eyes to look at her defiantly. She saw fear in them too and determination, and then, to her surprise and what caused a feeling of a pleasant warmth building up inside her – worry, a genuine concern for her were reflected in them as he already began to fear that she would do it anyway.

"I don't see why not," Cordelia interrupted in a loud, annoyed voice. "It's not like we have that many options. Besides, we might as well all be dead soon, so what does it matter if-"

"Shut up, Cordy," Xander said, pushing her aside and turning to Giles. "I agree with her though. It's the best shot we have. If there's any way to know what they're gonna do, we should take it. Might give us at least a small advantage... or time to arrange our last affairs," he added cynically.

"That's it then," Helen said and turned to the table to retrieve her wand.

Giles pushed himself off the racks he had been leaning onto. "I don't like this. You're not yet strong enough... what if-if you get trapped there, what if your-your spells don't work and you won't have enough strength to get back?" He asked and the tone of his voice was that of someone who was desperately throwing in his last arguments when at the same time knowing that he won't win the dispute, with a trace of panic in it.

"I will when I have to," she said calmly, then asked Willow to describe to her where the said factory stood. When they were done she turned at the others. "Now you go get this... big gun, I go to see how the things are with the Judge, and we'll meet here afterwards."

"Right, take care," Willow said and gave her a weak smile that was probably supposed to be encouraging, but looked more like a painful grimace. It was still Buffy and Angel who were on her mind.

When they left, Helen turned around and almost bumped into Giles, she didn't noticed when he had come to stand right behind her. He grasped her shoulders staring into her eyes as if he wanted to drown in them.

"I won't be long," she said reassuringly, "I'll apparate back here as soon as I can." And when he wasn't replying, but his thumbs were stroking her shoulders, she added: "Don't worry."

A short laugh, more like a sigh, escaped his lips after those last words and the look in his eyes now was telling that those same words were fairly absurd. He would always worry.

She smiled, gave him a brisk kiss on his cheek and with a loud pop she was gone, leaving Giles alone in the unwelcome sudden silence of the library.

_Damn it!_ He closed his eyes, angry with himself that he had let her go. He could think of dozens, hundreds of things that could go wrong while she was undertaking that mission. But he forced himself not to, and instead walked into his office determined to keep his mind focused on other things: to once again try to find out more about Angel's past that would give them any clue about why he had changed back.

An hour later, though it seemed to Giles like it's been ten, Xander, Willow, Cordelia and Oz returned carrying a large box with a gun they all were hoping would be able to destroy the Judge, making the old unnerving records of "_no weapon forged_..." invalid at last.

"How did it go?" Giles asked them, trying to hide his concerns – he had thought that Helen would be back before them.

"Smoothly, no troubles at all," Xander answered proudly as they placed the box on the other desk in Giles' office. "Now let us hope it will work too."

"Isn't Helen back yet?" Willow asked.

"No-" Giles replied when they heard some noises coming from the library. They went out to see a chair lying overturned on the floor, but there was no one. And yet they could clearly hear loud and fast-paced breaths and from somewhere – as if out of the sheer air – blood drops were falling on the floor beside the table. Then a familiar voice said a quiet "_Finite_" and they all winced a bit when Helen's body suddenly materialized out of nothing right in front of them. She was supporting herself onto the table with one hand, the other she was holding under her nose. She looked pale, exhausted and breathless, but otherwise unharmed. Giles hurried towards her and pulled a chair closer for her to sit down. He grabbed the towel and went over to the basin to soak it in cold water.

"Did you find out anything useful?" Willow asked her.

She nodded, then took the wet towel from Giles with a grateful look. Here nose was bleeding badly and she had the taste of blood in her mouth too, but she managed to speak: "Yes... Yes, I did. They-ah... they won't attack before tomorrow, sundown... i-it seems that that thing will then be in full possession of-ah... of its powers."

"Do we know where?" Xander asked.

Again she nodded, but seemed to have difficulties to continue. "They... were arguin'... someone suggested they should start with the school, but... since they... I mean the vampires... can't go out before sundown and the school is usually empty by then... they dismissed it... the Bronze is closed tomorrow, so they decided to go to the Mall."

"The Mall?" Cordelia exclaimed rather scandalized. "Well, that's just great! That's not selfish at all! I mean, it's not like it's been the best shopping place in the world, but still, it's the only place in Sunnydale I can some acceptable stockings!"

They all merely glared at her.

"Are you alright?" Giles asked Helen in a considerate tone.

"Mhm... It was close at one point, my disillusionment charm wore off and one of their watchdogs saw me, but... I hit him with a cross and disapparated elsewhere, closer to where Spike, Angel and Drusilla were... I would have stayed longer," she lowered her voice now so that only Giles would hear, "they were just talking about Buffy, but... my nose... Angel could smell the blood... I had to disappear."

Giles was looking at her thoughtfully. "Tomorrow then..." He sighed heavily, then raised his head towards the door of his office where the others were assembled to admire their bounty. "They brought the gun, there's a chance it might work," he said, not very convincing, he wasn't quite able to keep the doubts from his voice.

"It might," she replied, trying to smile. She stood up and wanted to go to him, to touch him, but her knees gave in. Too many apparitions. _Damn it! Will it never get better?_ She cursed, she hated it, hated getting embarrassed by her own weakness every time she did a few spells. Giles caught her and she turned red.

"Perhaps you best rest for a while... I could drive you home," he said and when she nodded, he shouted at Willow that he would be back in half an hour, put an arm around Helen and together they left.

During the drive Helen told him about the short conversation that she had overheard between Angel, Drusilla and Spike. Obviously Angel didn't intend to kill Buffy, he only wished to hurt her. A lot.

"Could you detect, from anything he said, what made him change?"

She shook her head. "No, nothing."

When they arrived at Giles' house and he helped her to get out of the car, she stopped for a moment, looking at him anxiously.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Are you sure... I mean doesn't it bother you – me staying at your place? I could go to my house," she said in a small voice.

Giles raised his brows and smiled his loveliest smile, the one that was making her already unsteady knees even weaker. "No, it doesn't bother me," he replied gently. "In fact I didn't think for a moment of bringing you elsewhere... which perhaps was a bit-uh... i-indecorous on m-my part on second thoughts-," he began to stutter.

But she stopped him when she stood on her tiptoes to give him a thankful kiss on his lips, then shook her head slightly and whispered: "Wasn't at all."

* * *

><p>On the next morning Giles decided that Helen should stay at home. She didn't look very well, he could see that she wasn't up to her full strength yet, and she had had some bad dreams at night so that she was hardly rested.<p>

"But Snyder is going to kill me-" She protested, but Giles didn't care.

"I'll talk to him," he said while he was putting on his jacket, then he suddenly straightened up, something occurred to him. "Perhaps you should call him. I have the feeling he might take it better from you."

Helen frowned. She remembered the strange call from the principal. She could hardly believe it was only two days ago, with everything else that had happened it seemed like ages.

She picked the phone and sighed, then with a wildly throbbing heart dialed the number of principal's office. But Snyder wasn't there yet, it was too early, his secretary answered it and Helen left her the message that she won't be in today, but will come tomorrow. _If there will be a tomorrow_, she thought, then hurried to hang up, fearing that Snyder might just arrive and she be forced to talk to him after all.

* * *

><p>When Giles arrived at school, Buffy was already waiting for him in the library, her face was expressionless, cold, hard even, but he was wondering whether that facade wouldn't crumble away – by a word, an allusion, a recollection. Yet he also knew he had to find out for all their sakes what had caused Angel's sudden metamorphosis. Only once they'd establish that, they could think ahead, only if they'd understand the curse and its nature could they possibly try to reverse the transformation.<p>

"Buffy-" he began a tentative approach.

"I slept with him," she said dryly and stubbornly, looking him in the eyes, but as she saw his eyes widen and his mouth open and close wordlessly in surprise, she couldn't bare it and dropped her head to stare at the floor.

His lips kept moving, as if he was about to articulate something to say, but couldn't find the right words, didn't actually know what to reply. It was the last thing he would have expected, or better – he would never have expected that.

"I think that might have... changed him," Buffy said in a quiet, slightly ironic voice, still observing the tiles of the library floor.

Giles took off his glasses and began to clean them and Buffy looked at him. Though normally she regarded that habit of his as terribly annoying and ridiculous, strangely enough now she found that gesture oddly endearing and... sedative somehow. She didn't really know what she had expected him to say, but in almost every scenario she had been through in her head she had seen and heard him yelling at her or at least telling her off in his British manner for how irresponsibly she had acted. That he didn't do any of it, and that neither did he ask her _why_ _she had done it_ or _how could she_, that was comforting her a little, for how could she explain to him that she loved Angel so badly?

"Buffy?" Apparently he had addressed her couple of times before she woke up from her thoughts.

"Oh, sorry, what did you say?"

"I-uh... I asked you whether you can tell me anything, from what he might have mentioned to you at some time, anything at all about that curse? I want you to think carefully and try to remember," he asked her, sounding all business and research as ever.

She frowned, her eyes were glassy and she gulped. He came closer and spoke more softly now. "I want you to recall anything that he had told you about his past that might somehow be connected to the curse... we'll think of something... but we need to know as much as possible."

She nodded and took a deep breath, then told him what she knew. To Giles' disappointment it wasn't much: Around the end of the century Angel was staying in Romania, Buffy didn't know any places, any names, only that he had fed on a girl who was something like a gypsy-princess, from some local gypsy clan and as punishment the elders of that clan had restored his soul.

"I called Willow this morning, she told me what you found out yesterday night, and also about your plans," she pointed towards his office where the big gun was. "Do you think we stand a chance?"

"I don't know," he answered after a while, "I choose to think we do."

* * *

><p>Later that day as they were just making the last preparations for their counterattack, Helen called to ask whether they needed any help. She wanted to come, but Giles forbade it. To keep her busy and distracted he asked if she could do some research on her own about Angel. He told her what he had learned from Buffy and what he had already known from the Watchers Diaries: "The last entry in the Watchers Diaries from that period mentions him being in a-a small Romanian town, Fora-... no, Fogaraș, yes, that's it."<p>

"Făgăraș?" She asked perplexed. "Are you certain?"

"Yes. Why?"

"That's not far from the place where we grew up... what a coincidence," she said.

"Yes, it certainly is," Giles murmured, wondering himself.

"Alright then, I'll hit the books and the internet," she said. There was a long pause after that and Giles knew that neither of them wanted to hang up.

He was hoping that they would defeat the Judge, but he couldn't know. He couldn't know whether this wasn't their last talk.

"I'll see you later," she finally said, trying to sound lightly as if she was expecting him for dinner again.

"And I you," he replied smiling into the phone, wishing he could see her face now. She hung up.

* * *

><p>Hours later when the surprisingly short fight was over – if one could call it a fight, since all that happened was Buffy aiming a gun at the Judge and firing, causing him to explode into hundreds of pieces – Buffy and Giles were sitting in his car in front of her house.<p>

"You must be so disappointed in me," Buffy whispered, the huge bump in her throat was making it hard for her to speak.

"No! No, I'm not," Giles said, shaking his head vehemently.

"But it's all my fault," tears were now filling her eyes.

"No. I don't believe it is," he spoke gently and she looked at him, there was a mixture in her eyes of disbelief and a desperate desire that he meant what he was saying. "Do you want me to wag my finger at you and tell you acted rashly? You did. A-and I can... But I know that you loved him. And-uh... he... has proved more than once that he loved you. You couldn't have known what would happen. None of us could. The coming months are-uh... are going be hard... I suspect on all of us. But... if it's guilt you're looking for, Buffy, I'm not your man. All you will get from us is my-our support, and our respect."

She smiled at him through her tears and fought the urge to hug him, then got out and Giles watched her walk to her front door and disappear in the house.

* * *

><p>Minutes later he arrived at his apartment. The living room was dark except for one of the small lamps on his desk that was lit. He noticed the cover of an old record – The Ink Spots – that he had bought at an antiques store when he had first come to Sunnydale and then forgot all about it. He grinned for he himself hasn't even listened to it yet. Helen must have put it on earlier, because now the record was on the player that has obviously stopped playing it a while ago.<p>

"Helen?" He asked quietly. When there was no answer, panic the cause of which he couldn't explain overcame him for a moment and he hurried upstairs, but stopped upon the last step, relieved. Helen was sleeping on his bed, surrounded by books, some of them lay open and there were notes scribbled on small slips of paper in them, right next to her head was an open laptop, and her left hand was resting on an old volume, still half holding a pencil, ready to write down the next reference. Amused he observed that again she was wearing his shirt, the one he had took off yesterday night and left it on the armchair next to the bed. He watched her for a moment, glad and grateful that he could do just that now, that once again his Slayer and the Scoobies managed to avert the apocalypse. He hesitated whether he should collect the books and take away her computer to make it more comfortable for her, or to tuck her more properly with the sheets, but then from the content look on her face – she almost seemed to be smiling – he gathered that she was fine and also far from having the nightmares that had kept her from sleep the previous night. Therefore he decided he better not disturb her and he just as quietly as possible walked to his bedside table to turn off the lamp.

In the early morning Helen came downstairs just as Giles was waking up.

"I'm so sorry you had to sleep on that sofa again," she said, "you could have waked me up." She came to sit next to him.

He only smiled a tired smile for an answer.

"So how did it go? I take it you're all alright," she asked and ran a hand tenderly through his dishevelled hair.

"Yes, yes, we are... or more or less," he said, then he told her about their successful assault.

"How is Buffy?" She asked tentatively.

"She's-uh... I'm not sure... She is a strong girl, but this is going to be hard on her. And she feels guilty. And that could be both – strengthening and toughening her up... or-uh... paralyzing... And I can't tell yet how it will bear on her," he said in an earnest and concerned voice.

"Don't worry, she'll be ok," she tried to ease him, "she's a trooper."

He raised his eyes to meet hers and managed a weak smile. "Yes, I suppose she is." Then his look slid downwards. "I see you like my shirts."

She blushed. "Y-yes, uh-h, I do... they smell of you," she said in a hardly audible voice, a little embarrassed.

"Perhaps next time I'll be getting some from London, I should order you a couple of new ones," he said amused.

Helen glared at him first, then leant closer and looked him in the eyes flirtingly. It took his breath away again. "That would be rather missing the point," she said, before kissing him.

* * *

><p>As Giles had predicted, the coming weeks were not easy, for all of them, but especially for Buffy. Angel had become the very true version of his former self, falling into same habits as Angelus had, harassing Buffy and her friends. But other things were happening too. Oz had become a werewolf. Snyder had apologized to Helen for being rude to her earlier, which caused her an odd sense of discomfort. Plus she could have sworn that he wanted to invite her for dinner, and only the call from his secretary announcing that Billy Crandal had chained himself to the snack machine again prevented him from doing so in the end. Helen had frowned at it then, and she already was suspecting something, or better <em>someone<em> being responsible for Snyder's extraordinary and queer behaviour.

And the red roses were still being delivered daily to her house, with the same card and initials of a mysterious R., when on one afternoon as she walked home a thing occurred to her – what was Snyder's first name? She paused and found it astonishing how she had never thought about it. _Wasn't it... hang on_... she pictured the name badge in his office, which she had been staring at during their previous surreal conversation... it said _Principal R. Snyder_. She turned red as she passed the baskets of roses on her veranda, and anger began to fill her up.

She sped up and hurried to her fireplace that had been repaired at last, when Mr. Cornish from the Ministry's Floo-Maintenance Office had appeared to take care of it a few days ago. She now threw some powder in it, spoke the address in London, and yelled into the fire angrily: "George? Come here at once!"

She could hear some muffled voices at the other side and she looked at the large clock on the mantelpiece. It was way after midnight over there, but she didn't care. "George Weasley! Get here! Now!" It happened seldom enough that she would get this furious or lose her control, but if her suspicion was right, then..._ohhh, well, then, George, you are in a lot of trouble_, she was foaming.

"What on Earth is going on?" George's sleepy and tired voice sounded right before his head appeared in the fireplace.

For a moment she was simply looking at him, as if waiting for him to confess, but he was just glaring back at her through narrowed eyes that obviously got open only a minute ago from a deep sleep. "What?"

"Don't you think I might recognize a love spell when I see one?" She asked, trying to stay calm.

George still didn't seem to understand, or care.

"The Principal?" She gave him a hint.

Now George furrowed his brows as if catching up some memories. Helen waited, pushing the limits of her patience yet further. Then a wide grin appeared on George's face.

"Ohh, I remember!" He exclaimed. "That's what you're talking about! I'd forgotten all about it!" He was excited and cheerful now. "I thought that would be fun!"

"Fun?!" Helen said in a high-pitched voice. "Fun?! You call that fun?! He's drowning my house in tons of roses every day! He-he talks like someone else, he's so... polite, he opened the door for me, God, he even drew out a chair for me today in his office and then he bowed, Merlin, I swear I've never experienced anything scarier... how could you?!" She accused him.

"Hey, hang on," George was now trying to defend himself with just as much vigour. "I was saving you your job, lady!"

"That's-that's saving my job?" She was about to laugh out hysterically. "What has a love spell got to do with saving anyone's job?"

"I confused him a bit," he answered, there was a trace if guilt in his voice this time, "and imperiused him too, he was playing hard-to-screw-up, so I... had to use all I could."

"You put a love spell on him," she repeated poignantly.

"Just a small one," George replied to appease her.

"If that's the _smallest_ you can do, I wonder what else you're capable of," she said sarcastically. "Ohh, let's never find out," she added, slowly regaining her calm, "and you'll have to come here to break it off, I don't dare to do it myself."

He nodded and murmured "I'm sorry."

"Good. And I hope you also feel guilty and very, very bad," she said and something in her voice made him prick up his ears. She didn't sound mad anymore, rather like she was being up to something. Meanwhile George knew that tone too well. She _needed_ something.

"I don't feel _that_ guilty actually. Why?" He asked askant.

"Because I need a few favours."

* * *

><p><em>AN: From now on the pacing should get a little faster and not again – as the last bits - dealing with one or two evenings spread over five or six chapters, sorry for that. Also I shall continue and develop the other plots, esp. with the Death Eaters and Council connection. Please review, I'd love to read anything, any reactions or critics.<em>


	31. Chapter 31: Of coming trials

Chapter 31

Of coming trials and concertos

_AN: A very short and rather uneventful chapter. Also, the title sucks once again, sorry for that. Nevertheless I thought I best get it out. Many thanks for the past reviews! They were great and very helpful and certainly won't be ignored, even if I shouldn't apply all of the hints. It's awesome to read your thoughts and points at things I did not notice or didn't give enough attention to. I'll try to answer some of your hints – about the wandlore – many thanks for that especially, you gave me some good things to think about. Yes, I hope that when I re-write it one day I might get it done properly: The story behind it – that I didn't tell here because I thought it would get me too sidetracked – was that somewhere in the 15__th__ century the last know couple with these strong wands had gone bad, wrong, did something really horrible or something – I didn't think it into details much, just as an explanation why by then the wandmakers had stopped producing these identical wands. Perhaps they had made an official agreement to not produce them ever again. I haven't thought of the possibility of a misuse or an inflationary production of such powerful wands until your review, so I will now :) (and I did adjust the summary a bit according to the suggestion, thanks for that too ;))_

* * *

><p>"Your favours tend to be rather tedious, and mostly rewardless, not to say thankless," George said gloomily.<p>

"I'll bake you a cake," she said unimpressed and didn't notice his glare.

"Yeah, right," George replied in an undertone that was suggesting that he rather doubted it. "If I wanted to get poisoned, I could just stop by in Knockturn Alley."

"What?" She asked, a little impatiently, she didn't want to get distracted again, fearing she'd forget all that she wanted to ask. "Never mind," she shook her head, "could you please find out for me how I can contact Rebecca? Does she have a phone by any chance, at home or at the office – I heard some of the new staff at the Ministry began using them – or is there a safe Floo connection to her office, I need to talk to her. Ask Percy perhaps, it's rather urgent... Well, that's the one thing-", she tipped on her lips thoughtfully.

"And just how many _things_ are there gonna be?" George asked. He was tired and unfocussed and he wanted to go back to bed.

"What?"

"Do I need to get a pen and make notes?"

"No, unless you are a dunderhead you don't... There's _one_ more thing – I need to get in touch with Charlie. Can you give me his Floo-address? I need to talk to him as well, we might need his help here."

George raised his brows curiously. "We? Why? What's going on?"

"It's a long story, I don't have time now. It's about Angel." Helen had told George about Angel's transformation earlier when he called to know how they dealt with the Judge.

"Angel?" George asked in surprise. "What does he have to do with Charlie?"

"Nothing really. But it seems that Angel had been cursed with his soul by the elder of a Romanian gypsy clan, and we're trying to find out which and where it was, we need to know more about the curse," she spoke fast, she didn't want to get much into details. "Listen, we'd be really grateful if he could help us. You know, he might know a few people, who again might know someone else, who might possibly know yet some other fellows who could tell us more.

"Right. I'll check it and ask dad tomorrow."

"Would you? That would be great. I can be here tomorrow morning, at around three pm your time?"

"Ok. I'll see what I have for you by then."

"Thank you."

"Oh, by the way, the date for Lestrange's trial's been set. It's in two weeks from now."

"Good. Will you be going?"

"I don't know yet. To see his maniac face again? I think I could live without it."

* * *

><p>On the next morning Helen was standing in front of her fireplace, waiting for George to turn up. He did soon and gave her the requested floo-connections both to Charlie's fireplace in Transylvania and to Rebecca's office at the Ministry.<p>

"Great. Thanks a lot, George," she said, happy that it all went so quick. Later in the afternoon she would try to reach Charlie and then Rebecca in the morning.

"One more thing," George said, sounding more earnest than usually and Helen raised her brows. "I have a feeling that Kingsley might wish you be here for the trial with Rodolphus."

"What makes you think that?" She asked in surprise.

"Because he's here and has just told me so."

"Hi, Helen," suddenly the head of Kingsley Shacklebolt appeared next to George's and before she could greet him back, he spoke all business. "Yes, that's right. I'm afraid you'll have to attend."

"W-what on Earth for?"

"We need your testimony."

"I don't want to testify." She said simply and her face turned pink. It wasn't the only, the true reason and when she shortly looked at George, she saw that he knew exactly why she feared it. There would be too many people, crowds of wizards and witches, acquaintances and friends and others, most of whom she hadn't seen since a long time, since the battle or since that spell she had tried... _No, she couldn't come_. _It was utterly impossible_. It was already bad enough that she was involved in the case at all – and as a former auror who however didn't manage to capture the former Death Eater because of the weakness she had caused herself – honestly – wasn't it embarrassing enough? Do they have to summon her for everybody to see and to hear how a powerful witch became a useless and needy nuisance?

"Helen-" Kingsley began.

"No, there's no way. You can do without me," she said firmly, yet George noticed her hand getting shaky as she ran it nervously through her hair.

"Actually we can't. And we won't," Kingsley replied just as firmly as her.

"I won't be coming. Thank you for the kind invitation, but I'm afraid I must refuse," she said, the sarcasm in her voice was only covering for the panic she still felt when she imagined herself actually going. "I wish you a great trial though, do have a couple of drinks on me afterwards. I have to go now. School-"

"Helen," Kingsley said louder, "don't make me order you."

She looked at him in disbelief and opened her mouth to say something, but George cut her off: "Is it really necessary that she come?" He asked Kingsley in an attempt to appease them both a little as they both seemed to be quite on the edge of their nerves – Helen from her fear, Kingsley simply from being overworked and not in the mood of arguing about something he had hoped he'd make clear and solve quickly. "I mean, we've been there, Hermione and Ron too, we can testify on Helen's account, she told us everything."

Helen looked at him gratefully, but Kingsley shook his head. "No, that's not enough, George. She will have to come," and he saw Helen looking at him desperately and about to raise further protests, so he spoke louder and in a sharper voice: "I know what this is about, and I don't have time for this. You will have to go through it. We must have your testimony and we can't be considerate about your little insecurities you see, they don't matter here and neither of us care about them. Just because you fear what others might think – we can't change the hearing for your embarrassment's sake."

Helen dropped her jaw.

"Besides, people will be going there to see Rodolphus sentenced, not to watch and tattle about you," he added, trying to sound more encouraging this time, but when Helen and George both raised their brows at him, he frown. "What?"

"C'mmon, Kingsley, now we all know that's a big lie," George said. "Rodolphus Lestrange had not been seen or heard of really for almost five years before he was caught, he was working somewhere abroad and since his escape from Azkaban seven years ago he hadn't been much in anyone's mouth, he was more or less forgotten, just another Death Eater who managed to escape, water over the bridge."

Kingsley looked at him blankly. "Your point being?"

"Remember the papers soon after the Prophet had found about Helen's... spell... two years ago?"

Helen shivered at the memories...

Rita Skeeter had kept visiting her every day in St. Mungo's back then, desperately trying to make her talk to her, she had been unbearably sweet, polite and neat, but Helen wouldn't say a single word to her, so finally she gave up and made up a story on her own, one that very much reminded of her previous mischiefs – her first article on Harry during the Triwizard tournament and then her infamous biography of Albus Dumbledore. Helen thought she would be sick when she recalled the short story at the front page of the Prophet which appeared a few days after Rita Skeeter's last visit.

_Where has the magic gone? _

_Mai 8th 1998. Great Hall at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Two powerful witches are standing against each other, fighting. Yet one of them is more powerful than the other. In fact, Helen Thornton is more powerful than any other witch had ever been. But the other doesn't know, doesn't have an idea. No, Bellatrix Lestrange doesn't even guess, especially not after she managed to disarm her opponent and is laughing maniacally while torturing her with the unforgivable curse. When she breaks the spell and looks gleefully at her victim, she is savouring the moment and the senseation of power she feels she has over her. And even now, when Helen Thornton's eyes narrow, Bellatrix still doesn't have a notion. In a fraction of second she is dead without ever having known about the extraordinary mighty magic that had killed her. _

_March 1999. St. Mungo's Hospital._

_A woman is lying on the hospital's bed. She is staring at the opposite wall where a painting hangs, a rather bad copy of Boldini's _The Rose in Vase of Sassonia_, but her gaze is empty. When I address her softly, she slowly turns her head to me and says in a moony voice: "He loved Boldini. Severus did, you know..." Then she smiles widely and tilts her head slightly, before continuing: "He used to say that I reminded him of _Madame de Florian_..." Then she looks back at me, the smile changes into a smug grin – she is expecting some sign of appreciation, so I smile and nod politely, for I don't wish to tarnish her memories or to cloud her obviously disordered, fragile reality. Nothing about her reminds on the _Heroine of the Great Hall_, as some people have referred to her after the battle. And then she again forgets everything around her, I'm not there, the room seems to have dissolved for her, or to have shaped itself into another, some from an old memory, as she begins to mutter strange meaningless words, clearly speaking to some invisible people who aren't there, laughing, crying, smiling, shouting and whispering all at the same time. It is a sad picture. No, she bears no resemblance to the Helen Thornton, who had fought at Hogwarts a year ago. And that's good. Because this woman, this broken shade of a person isn't her anymore and will never be her again._

Helen had thought that she had finally been let in peace, and then this. She had been staring at the black letters incomprehensively, each word had stung like sharp needles. George came later to visit her, hoping that she hadn't seen the article, but when he saw her face he knew, and tried to cheer her up instantly. "Well, on the plus side – at least she didn't print your picture anywhere," he said and smiled widely.

Helen had given him a sinister look, took the Prophet from her bedside table and threw it at him. George grabbed it and growled in disgust. The short article on the front page wasn't everything. The real masterpiece of fiction by Rita Skeeter came on pages 4 and 5, with a nice black and white photograph of Helen, lying in the hospital bed, crying for herself. Skeeter must have put some spell on it, because Helen – no matter what condition she had been in – hadn't shed a single tear in a very long time. On these two pages Rita was basically telling the public how the former most powerful witch in the world tragically, romantically made the decision to get rid of her magic, to break with the wizarding world because she couldn't come in terms with the loss of the man, the wizard who never had loved her. She had made Helen to appear like a lunatic, like a character from a cheesy soap-opera. There was not much sense into it and everyone who knew Helen well, would recognize that it couldn't be the truth. Yet as it was there weren't many people left who could say that they knew her well, so there was no one to ask, no one to appeal to, and therefore most of the people had accepted the story, wondering a bit at first, then – as there was no reaction from Helen, no defense – shaking their heads, and finally condemning.

Kingsley's voice reached her from a great distance and brought her back to the present. "Well, be it as it may, there still are people who want and should see Rodolphus convicted and put to justice, he is a murderer, among other things-"

"And he already had been sentenced for that, after the first battle. I don't see why there has to be a big trial again. Can't you just put him back to prison? I mean, he had been sentenced to what... a hundred years in Azkaban back then..." Helen said. She was tired and feared that this conversation would spoil the rest of her week, she knew she wouldn't be able to think of anything else until it would be all over.

"It's not that simple and you know it, Helen," Kingsley said patiently.

"Besides," George said in a cautious voice, "it might be your chance to show all of them what a big bit of rubbish that story had been."

Helen didn't think so. "I doubt I can do that... I bet I'm rather in for some more of _Oh, Helen, look at you, you look so... well, astonishingly... normal, it's so nice to see you're up and about again_," she said imitating the voice of one of the guests at George's and Angelina's wedding. "And then they'll be waiting like vultures for me to have a break down or I don't know... to-to make a crazy scene or something, to start crying and ripping my hair or such..."

"Oh, Helen, come of it, it will be nothing like it," Kingsley assured her.

She sighed, knowing that any further protest was pointless. "Will it be a public hearing?"

"Yes. It will. It's Rodolphus Lestrange. Though I agree that he hadn't been very visible in the past years, he still belongs to the highest ranked Death Eaters, people will want to see... _him_," he underlined the last word.

"Alright. I have one condition however," she said firmly and Kingsley gave her a wary look, expecting another attempt to get out of it.

"I don't want anyone from here to be involved. Not the Slayer, not the Watcher, none of these people."

"But they are already involved, George told us-"

"I don't mean that. There must be no names. If we have to talk about them and bring them up, then change their names for the hearing. And leave out the Slayer/Watcher thing completely. People don't have to know about it. We can just consider them as ordinary muggles."

"But what about that girl? The Slayer? I was told that Lestrange couldn't harm her."

"Do we have to mention it there?"

"Yes, we do. The trial will start with yours, Hermione's and George's testimony as to what exactly had occurred there since the first day Rodolphus had appeared until the point when George and Ron brought him to the Ministry."

"Alright. We'll say that-ah... while firing curses at her he missed her. We don't have to say anything about her being a Slayer."

Kingsley was clearly having doubts. "He would have her missed about dozen times."

"Yes. Too bad for him," Helen said dryly and when Kingsley wanted to say something else, she cut him off: "Common, Kingsley, is she supposed to be dragged into this just because Rodolphus didn't manage to kill her with one of his spells? Look. I'm not discussing this. I give you my word that I will be attending the hearing – you must give yours on this - that there will be no mention of a Slayer or a Watcher or any real names. You can invent some for the purposes of the trial, then say something – you know, it wouldn't be the first time. The Wizengamot often used to change the names of the muggles involved for their own safety, we can say this is just such a case."

Hesitantly Kingsley acceded to it at last. "Fine. I'll see to it."

"Thank you. And once I'm there I will want to talk to you about something else as well. Then you might understand better why I have asked this of you. But now I don't have the time." She looked at the clock again. "Goodness, I have to run, my first class starts in twenty minutes."

"Alright. Then I will see you in ten days."

Suddenly Helen looked horrified. "Wait! How do I get there? Snyder will kill me if I ask for another day off."

Kingsley grinned. "Hmmm, from what George is telling me, I very much doubt that that would be the case."

Helen looked at George in disbelief, but he just shrugged. "You can't mean it," she said to Kingsley, hoping that he wasn't implying what she thought he was.

"Why not? It would be only for two more weeks. You can use his... condition... to your advantage right now."

Helen stared at him in shock. Surely they didn't think she would use Snyder's spell-caused feelings towards her to achieve something, anything... that would mean to... brrr, she didn't dare to think of it...

"Don't make such a fuss of it! Ask him to let you go, and bribe him with a nice dinner."

"You can't be serious," she repeated with a dead face.

"One dinner won't kill you, Helen, the Ministry will reimburse the costs if necessary," Kingsley said finally, making clear he wouldn't discuss this any further. "I don't really care, just make sure you are here in ten days' time."

Helen offered George one last deadly glare, before the two of them said a good bye and broke the connection.

* * *

><p>Later that day when Helen entered the library, Giles saw immediately that something was bothering her, and she didn't even try to hide it. The moment their eyes met she felt that she wanted to tell him about it, to share her worries and anxieties, and indeed when she finished telling him about the morning talk with Kingsley and George, she suddenly felt that the whole affair wasn't so awful after all. It was almost as if she didn't really understand now anymore, why she had reacted the way she had, why she had feared that trial so much, because really – when looking into Giles' green-hazel eyes – she didn't care, it simply ceased mattering. And Giles noticed her easing off gradually and he wondered what had caused it, then he began to think about the past few weeks. He could tell that she had changed since her recovery. She seemed happier, more tranquil. She had always been calm, he thought, but there was always a certain uneasiness about her and about that calm before, insecurity, perhaps fear even – that seemed to have disappeared now. She was talking to him, on her own, he didn't have to force her to, didn't have to "extract" things from her bit by bit anymore. He wasn't sure whether he had anything to do with this subtle transformation, he didn't want to flatter himself, but he liked it nevertheless, it made him happy too, especially when hard times were ahead and on other levels their every-day life had become more difficult, constantly overshadowed by Angelus and his chicanery.<p>

He stroke her cheek, saying: "You will do fine there. I wish could come with you to that trial, but that's probably not such a good idea."

Helen nodded. "No, I don't think it would be wise. I don't want you involved. Not until this business with the Death Eaters' connection to the Council is cleared. And besides Kingsley probably wouldn't approve of muggles at the Ministry." She frowned then, murmuring more to herself. "I wonder how my uncle had managed to get your friend Robson to the Council-Department then..."

Giles had disappeared in his office for a moment and when he returned, he looked at her clearly eager to tell or show her something.

"I've got something to make your mood better," he said, fighting the excitement about how she would react.

"There's a concert tonight, in the city hall," he began and watched her eyes widen curiously. "And guess what they're playing."

She looked at him pleadingly to tell her now and stop teasing, so her offered her a small flyer with the program. She took it and quickly skimmed it, then looked back at him, and Giles thought her expression was priceless, and he would never get tired of being the cause of it.

"That's... the best," she said beaming at him.

His face now turned more serious, almost embarrassed, as he cleared his throat, then said: "I've got-uh... three tickets..."

"Three? Did I get that fat in the past weeks?" Helen asked jokingly.

"No, I-uh... I thought Buffy could come with us," his voice was more quiet now.

"Buffy?" Helen asked in disbelief, then looked again at the program to make sure she saw it right. Yes, it was still announcing

_Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73_

_Sergei Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18_

_Dmitri Shostakovich – Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102_

Somehow Helen couldn't imagine Buffy going to a concert like this. The poor girl would suffer terribly or die with the first movement of Rachmaninoff at the latest...

Giles knew exactly what she was thinking. "I know, it's not exactly-uh... the right place for her, but I thought we should take her with us, to distract her a little. Willow told me that she's been quite down and keeping a lot to herself now since-uh... the thing with Angel. And it is hard for her – when both Willow and Xander have-uh... Oz and Cordelia, are paired up, they're-uh... _couples_, and she's not, not anymore, so perhaps an evening with us would be... a welcome change."

Helen suppressed an amused smile, and tried to put an offended face: "_They're couples_. So. And what exactly are the two of us to you then?"

But Giles saw through her pretense and gave her a glare. "You know. That's different. Anything involving you and me – to Buffy seems just... gross. Nothing else. There's nothing to be jealous about, nothing to envy in her eyes." He shrugged. "In Buffy's eyes we're old, not in the game anymore, written off. She doesn't see us that way."

Helen wasn't sure that it was a good idea, but she understood too that Giles felt he ought to do it. And strangely enough Buffy agreed that she would come. But everything about her was making clear that she was only going out of boredom, because she had nothing better to do and her mother was out of town for a few days.

The concert was amazing. Or at least Helen and Giles were enjoying every bit of it. Buffy on the other hand would fall asleep during each of the second slow movements of the three concertos, only to be woken up every time by the third ones, looking disgruntled around her.

"Oh my God, that was boring," Buffy drawled during the drive to her house. Helen and Giles exchanged amused looks.

"You know, when it comes to piano concertos, you won't get any better," Helen said.

"Sure," Buffy murmured. "I wonder – do people have a switch somewhere on them so that once they get old someone turns it on and all of a sudden they start to listen to these horrible things..."

They accompanied Buffy into the house. Giles disappeared in the bathroom. Helen bit her lip briefly, thinking whether she should offer her help or advice, whether Buffy would accept it, whether it was welcome.

"You know," she began hesitantly, "we don't know each other very well, but-eh... if you need to talk to someone about-eh... anything... then... I'm here. I'll listen."

Buffy smiled uncomfortably. "Thanks, that's... very kind of you, but... I'm fine."

Helen pressed her lips together and nodded making a weird grimace that was supposed to say _Sure, whatever you like_, but she wasn't sure she got it right.

"You know, once I-ah... I was in a... a fairly similar position," she said suddenly in a quiet voice, but trying to sound as easy as possible.

"You were?" Buffy asked doubting it.

"Well, not really,... it was quite different actually, but... not that much on the other hand," yeah, she was blabbering again, and she grabbed her scarf so that her hands had something to play with. "It was many years ago, someone-ah... who I was very fond of by then, he-ah... he had lost his memory due to a very strong spell, and we couldn't reverse it... he had forgotten everything... not only me, he was different, horrible really... and then he left..." She was staring at the magnets on the fridge in the kitchen, while the fourteen years old memories were rushing through her head.

Buffy was hanging on her lips. "What did you do? How did you deal?"

Helen finally turned her head to Buffy. "I slept with the enemy," she said dryly, then swallowed and flushed and dropped her look.

Buffy's eyes widened in horror. "Am I supposed to sleep with Spike?!"

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thanks for reading this far. And as always – pls. review, leave tips, hints, comments, I'd love to read your thoughts.<em>


	32. Chapter 32: Of trials and families

Chapter 32

Of trials and families

_AN: So, the next part. It plays mostly in London at the Ministry. I hope you enjoy. Again thank you for the last review, I hope you won't be too disappointed with the developments._

* * *

><p>"Am I supposed to sleep with Spike?!" Buffy cried out in horror.<p>

Helen automatically turned her head towards where Giles had disappeared, afraid he might have overheard the short conversation. "No! Merlin..." She placed both her hands on her hand, looking desperate. "I only... sorry, forget what I said, sometimes I should just... not talk-"

"Did it help? Sleeping with the enemy?" Buffy asked and she looked baffled.

Again Helen shot a glance towards the corridor, before saying in a low voice: "W-well, three years later we got married."

Buffy stared at her with an open mouth: "Oh. My. God," she said slowly, utterly perplexed, imaging her marrying Spike, just when Giles re-entered the kitchen.

"Your mother does have an interesting-uh... taste for art," he said pointing at a strange statue of some African goddess in the anteroom. "Is everything alright?" He asked after a short pause when he noticed their odd expressions.

"Y-yes, yes, the best, I think we can now leave Buffy on her own, it's quite late," Helen said hastily and motioned towards the front door.

Buffy was still staring thoughtfully at the kitchen-knives.

"Buffy?" Giles addressed her.

"Hm? Yeah, you can go," she said at last. "And thanks," she added, then gave Helen an amused look and followed them to close the door behind them.

* * *

><p>The following days seemed to have flown away in a high speed and Helen would not be able to put off a talk with Snyder for much longer. A couple of times she considered to just leave for London without letting him know, but she didn't want to risk anything, she knew too, that a person under a love spell could be unpredictable. She was very nearly desperate when on an afternoon, a day before her departure she was summoned into his office without knowing the reason. Nevertheless she had the feeling that she wouldn't be pleased.<p>

When she reached Snyder's office and knocked on the door, she heard him clearing his throat nervously, then saying: "Come in."

She entered. Snyder was standing behind his desk, looking rather discomposed. "Please," he exhaled, loosening the knot on his tie a little, and pointed at the armchair. She walked slowly towards it, fixing him with her eyes, trying to figure out what this was all about. The moment she sat down, Snyder almost ran over to her and knelt down right in front of her, grasping both her hands into his. Her eyes widened, as he began to whisper frantically: "I-I can't hide it anymore... I don't want to pretend... I-I love you. Terribly, desperately, I think if I have to spend one more day without you, I'll explode..."

Helen opened her mouth, and closed it right away, utterly speechless. He took it as a good sign obviously, because he continued: "We should be together, don't you think? I'm sure you can feel it too, that we are meant for each other..."

She stared at him blankly.

He smiled and it occurred to her that she hadn't seen him smile this way before. It wasn't his usual mean and spiteful grin that he was offering to his students occasionally, it was rather a maniac, moony smile. "Let us leave, let us flee somewhere far away, so that we can be together forever, just the two of us..."

Helen furrowed her brows, she was thinking hard, what to do or say. "I-I... I'm not sure...," she said carefully, and when she saw his smile disappear, she hurried to add: "It's all so sudden..."

And then she had an idea. Not a great one, or one she would be boasting about to her grandchildren, but right now it was her best shot.

"I know, I know, but can't you see? We'd be perfect...," Snyder whispered again in a conspiratory voice.

She smiled tensed. "Yes, perhaps... uhm... I need some time to think about it," she said seriously.

"But-" He wanted to object, but she cut him off, raising her index finger warningly, and gave him a stern look.

"It is a very serious step that we can't do lightly," she then said strictly and he was hanging on her lips. "Here's what we do: You give me a few days off, to have my peace and to think carefully of things... there's a lot that we need to plan..."

"Why? Can't we just leave? No one will miss us," he said eagerly.

Helen gave him an indulgent smile. "It's not that simple. And I want us both to be absolutely sure that we want it-"

"I am sure, I never was this sure of anything before," he replied, scanning her body hungrily. She fought the urge to vomit.

"I know you are, a-and I want me to be too, that's why I need a little time-"

"But-"

"You have waited for so long, a couple of more days won't kill you. On the contrary," she tried her best flirty look and licked her lips, hating herself at the same time, "it might strengthen the passion." _Yuck._

There was again the awkward smile on his face and he squeezed her hands, then raised them to his lips and kissed them. She was having the hardest time to keep a straight face and not to sicken at the touch. She jumped up. "Alright, I'll be going then, I'll leave tomorrow and I'll be back in a week's time," she hurried towards the door, followed by Snyder's loony glances.

"I'm already missing you, my sweet darling," he said after her.

Helen shrugged from the disgust, in the doorway she turned around one last time, gave him the best smile she could manage, then closed the door and hurried away.

* * *

><p>Later that day Giles and Helen were sitting in his apartment, he had cooked once again a splendid dinner that they were eating now, yet Helen's mind was elsewhere. Giles noticed that she was not herself at all, she wasn't exactly nervous, she just looked like something was bothering her. Tomorrow she should take a plane to fly to London to be there one day in advance as she wanted to talk to Kingsley before the trial. Obviously her thoughts were already focused on that whole event, so that she hardly spoke a word during the whole meal and as she was eating, her hand holding the fork was wandering between her plate and her mouth in a rather automatized way. When they finished, Giles cleared the dishes away, then came to stand right behind her and caught her left hand. She turned at him as if she had just awoken from a dream. He softly pulled her to get up. He could not help her face the trial, but there might be other ways to at least distract her for a moment.<p>

"I think I know, what you need right now," he said confidently and led her to the bathroom. There he let go of her hand and turned on the water to fill the tub.

Then he turned to her and she at least tried to smile. He pulled her closer into his arms and his hand found the zip of her skirt on her back and opened it slowly, then he carefully slipped his other hand in to take it off. She didn't protest, in fact she looked like she would let him do just about anything right now – apart from thinking of and dreading the coming few days she felt she had no energy left to do anything else herself. Yet when the skirt fell to the floor and Giles' hands wandered up over her shoulders to the front of her blouse and began to open its buttons, her lethargy began to crumble. The effects of the touch of his fingers were hard to ignore. She raised her head and this time a true, wide, although a little tired smile appeared on her face as her hands slid downwards to his belt.

...

* * *

><p>In the early morning a cab took Helen to the small airport in Sunnydale from where she would take a plane to London via L.A. And it was again an early morning in London, when she landed at Heathrow and took a tube to Russell Square, then walked to her apartment to get at least a few hours of sleep before her meeting with Kingsley was due in the late afternoon.<p>

"I understand now why you don't want your... friends, the Watcher especially, involved or mentioned as long as we don't know more about the connection between the Council and the Death Eaters. Yet I'm not sure I understand what you want from me, what you want me to do," Kingsley finally spoke, after Helen had told him about the mysterious affair with the books of the Watchers Council.

Helen sighed, she was still tired and a little droopy from the jet leg. "To be honest I don't know myself... I'm not sure what to do, but...," she leant closer over his desk, "perhaps you could allow me to talk to Travers for a start."

"You mean Secundus Travers? You can pay him a visit in Azkaban for all I care. If you think there'd be any use," Kingsley offered.

Helen blushed. "I-ah... I can't aparate that long a distance."

"Can't you?" Kingsley asked surprised. "How horrible for you... I didn't know it was that bad," he said thoughtfully and Helen cursed him in her head.

"Well, it is," she said in a sharp voice. "Do you think it could be arranged for me to meet with him here, at the Ministry?"

Kingsley wondered for a moment. "I don't see why not. But you'll have to wait until the Lestrange-trial is over. People wouldn't like having two notorious Death Eaters at the Ministry at the same time."

* * *

><p>Next morning Helen got up very early as the phone in her apartment was ringing. It was Giles who wanted to bolster her and cheer her up before she would leave to attend the hearing.<p>

"You'll be fine," he said reassuringly. "And I will be thinking of you."

"I thought you're going to bed right now," she replied amused.

"Well," Giles paused, "those two things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive," he said and Helen could almost see him turn pink. "However, call me when it's over."

"I will." _I love you_.

She took a cab to the Ministry, she wanted to be there early enough, hoping to see George and the others to calm her nerves a little. And indeed, thankfully, in the atrium she ran into Hermione, Ron, George and Mrs. Weasley.

"Oh, hello, dear," Molly greeted her brightly with a tight hug and a kiss. "How are you? Have you recovered alright from those dreadful attacks? Hermione told us Lestrange had battered you terribly. And where are you staying now? Didn't you want to come to the Burrow? You could have stayed with us! Surely you must be lonely here in this awful city, all alone, why didn't you floo? We were expecting you! You know Arthur and me – we'd be glad to have you," she said reproachfully.

Helen didn't know what to answer first. "No, no, please, I just didn't want to bother you," she saw Molly already raise to a protest and another offensive, "I have some errands here and at the Ministry and... you know I can't aparate very far these days, so... it's really more handy staying in London for the purposes. It's really nothing else, you know I love the Burrow. And do give my best regards to Arthur."

"Oh, he'll be here, you'll see him at the trial," Molly replied cheerfully.

"Oh," Helen seemed surprised, "him too."

"Of course. Everyone's coming," Molly said as if it was all natural.

"How neat," Helen said. She just hoped that everyone did not actually mean _everyone_. Feeling paranoid already she looked around them and instantly got the impression that the atrium was much more filled with wizards and visitors than usually.

They proceeded towards the lifts to descend to the 10th floor where the courtrooms of the Wizengamot were situated. The lift got full, there were at least twenty people inside, Helen was sure that that was the maximum allowed capacity. She was standing right at the back, George right next to her.

They reached level 2. Two Ministry employees got out and three others entered the lift.

"So, how are you? Ready to face the vultures?" George asked with a gleeful grin.

Helen took a deep breath, skimming over the heads of the people in front of them. "Well," she began, but stopped as the lift came to halt on level 3, to see whether anyone would get out. They didn't. Instead a tall young wizard entered, looking at this watch. The lift moved again. "Right," she turned back at George and frowned: "what were you saying?"

He smirked. "I was asking whether you were ready to face them all."

Helen made an odd grimace. "Well, I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"No, I guess not. Take it from the plus side: They all came here from near and far – just to see you, isn't that nice?" He said cheerfully. "I mean – who except for Harry perhaps can say that they're _that_ popular?"

She glared at him. "You really know your stuff, don't you?"

"Yeah, that's what they say."

"Why do they all have to be there?" Helen murmured as more wizards got in the lift.

"C'mon, Helen," George said as if he was to state the obvious, "is it so hard to understand?"

She looked at him frowning. For her it was.

"Voldemort is dead, there are no baddies left, no villains, everything is fine and well-ordered again, neat and organized... They're bored! This trial is probably the most exciting event of the past two years."

"You make it sound like it's a fair," she said, watching the level-display. They would reach level 8 now. Surely all of these people did not come here to attend the sodding trial...

"It is," George said, but Helen's eyes were now fixed at the lift's door which would open soon on the last floor before the level 10. The lift was now completely stodged. "On the other hand, if it cheers you up a bit, not _everyone_ will be there..." Not a single person left the lift on level 9, and two elderly wizards and a witch, by their robes recognizable as members of the Wizengamot, entered. "... Angelina won't be coming, someone has to take care of the shop, and Ginny's got exams and I doubt that anyone from the Hogwarts staff will be there..."

"Sorry?" Helen turned at him, her heart was already throbbing loudly, she was glad that she was standing at the back and wearing a hat as no one seemed to have recognized her as yet. "What were you asking?"

"Nothing really. Please, feel free to ignore me anytime," George replied just as the lift stopped and a pleasant, almost obtrusive female voice announced: "You've reached now level 10. Here you'll find the courtrooms of the Wizengamot. For the courts 1 to 3 turn left, for the courts 4 and five turn right. If you are attending a hearing in a witness-capacity, please register first in the registration office, room Nr. 1007 to your right. We wish you a pleasant stay." Helen felt as if someone wanted to mock her with that last sentence. Her feet seemed to have grown into the floor of the elevator and she didn't really mind. She didn't want to leave it. But George gave her a gentle slap on her back.

"Come on, dear, we'll show'em," he said, showing determination for the both of them, and so Helen stepped forward at last.

They entered the registry office, the door was wide open, Hermione and Ron were already there, still waiting for a clerk that would go with them over the required formalities.

"I do hope Kingsley sorted out the Slayer/Watcher and the names-thing," Helen said, "I completely forgot to ask him about it yesterday."

"Don't worry, he did," George assured her.

Hermione was nodding too: "Yes, they did a spell, or they will perform it at the begin of the hearing from behind, Kingsley asked Arnold Peasegood, the obliviator, to jinx the names."

"How?" Ron asked wondering.

"It is a little like a tabu-spell. Every time someone will want to say the real name, we will speak out a fake one, like... you're having _Martin_ on your tongue, but due to the spell what comes out of your mouth will be... _Peter_... It's rather a complicated magic I understand."

"It is," Helen agreed. "But if done properly – and Peasegood used to be good at these things – then it might be the safest alternative, preventing any mishaps and slips, plus it includes everyone, so it can't happen that one of us will say the fake name and Rodolphus could reveal the real one. He can't counter us this way."

"So. Are we all present?" They got interrupted by a small, kind looking old witch, who was beaming and twinkling at them and while she was putting down the necessary information and instructing them one by one as how to fill in the forms and how to behave during the trial in general, she was treating them like an old nurse would treat little children who were at a doctor's, afraid and about to receive their first injection. Amazingly the effect of this treatment didn't miss Helen and she was just beginning to feel a little better, safer and not so intimidated any more, almost like looking forward for the cookie or the praline the doctor would gave her afterwards, when she'd get through the procedure bravely enough, when the witch suddenly opened a side door of the office and pushed Helen, who was standing closest to it, through, saying, "So, off you go."

"What the-?!" Helen cursed and turned back towards the registry, when already George, who's been thrown out right after her, bumped into her. They both now raised their heads. They were standing in one corner of a large courtroom that seemed to be exploding filled with people. All the visitors' banks were occupied, only now and there Helen could spot a free seat, but even these were mostly being saved for someone as it seemed. The room also was filled with noise, people were chatting with their neighbours about all sorts of things and as there were hundreds of them, it was quite deafening. Helen's eyes were wandering over the faces. There was something wrong with the picture, she thought. This was supposed to be a trial, a hearing where one of the most dangerous Death Eaters, responsible for some of the most vicious crimes and the causer of terrible atrocities would be sentenced, for the second time, to spend what would hopefully be a long rest of his life in Azkaban. It was hardly an understatement to say that one could consider this a serious matter and an earnest occasion. Yet judging by many expressions on the faces of the present wizards, even from the short shreds of their dialogues...

_"Man, did you see the new Firebolt? We've been to the exhibition with Maud last Saturday, an amazing broomstick, I'll tell ya."_

_"Yeah, I don't know... I'm kinda grown with me old Nimbus, he's never let me down ever..."_

Or:

_"I'm desperate," said a middle-aged witch who just came in and took a seat that her friend had saved for her, "Rosie, my owl – since a couple of days she's been pooing on my windowsill outside the living room..."_

_"Really? How annoying," her friend sympathized with her._

_"You can say that out loud. Yesterday I did the mistake of letting the window open for a moment and when I came back I found a huge pile on the inner sill."_

_"Euwgh!"_

_"And I have no idea what I'm accused of having committed!"_

_"I read about these things... hang on, were you perhaps sending some wrackspurts? The Quibbler said that the Owls hate those and they get that way..."_

Another married couple were obviously talking about someone seated a few rows below, the wife had accused her husband of staring at another witch's breast that seemed to be very well proportioned, too well in the eyes of the wife_. "Phh, I bet those aren't even real."_

_The husband allowed himself another glance under the pretext of checking. "What makes you think so? They look fairly real to me," he murmured and when Helen looked at his wife, she thought that he was already walking on a very thin ice with that last remark._

_"Oh, Archie, please," she said impatiently, "no way. There are tons of potions nowadays, drink them and your boobs will grow like weed."_

_The husband frowned at the odd comparison and turned his eyes away from the other witch._

_"And it's not always easy to stop them," the wife added spitefully._

She gave George an incredulous look, but he shrugged merely. "I told ya. It's a nice gathering, isn't it? All I'm missing are some picnic baskets and some awful folk music."

"I still don't get it. It's Rodolphus Lestrange," Helen shook her head.

"Well, he's old news. He hasn't been very active since his escape, hasn't killed, tortured or disfigured anyone lately, or at least no one we'd know about," George was contemplating, "unlike in the first battle, and that was twenty years ago. His victims from that time are... well, dead mostly – I guess they were dead then as well, but, I mean there are far less people concerned this time, those who would have personal interest in seeing him sentenced aren't that numerous," he lowered his voice a little, "besides I heard that some of the relatives of the earlier victims – one is dad's friend – they would not come because it's too painful for them, they didn't attend Lestrange's trial then and they won't now, they don't really want to set eyes on him again."

Helen nodded thoughtfully.

"Aah, Helen," a female voice sounded behind them. It was Brunhilda Ogden, who used to work at the Auror's office with Helen after the battle, though Helen never liked her much. "You look so well! So... healthy, it's so nice to see you're up and about again," she said in a loud voice and several people sitting in the first rows close to where they were standing turned their heads now. Some seemed now to have recognized Helen and yet again among these some began to whisper and point at her to others.

"Yes, thank you, Brunny," Helen said, remembering that her former colleague hated the nickname, "I'm very well actually."

Brunhilda gave her a crooked smile and wanted to say something else, but Helen cut her off: "I believe that's Angus over there waving you to come," she nodded with her head towards the upper rows. "Bye, it was so nice to see you," she added and turned back at George: "So, pardon the interruption, George, you were saying?"

George looked at her amused. "See? You'll be fine. If you can handle all of them like that, I don't see what you're afraid of."

Helen sighed again heavily, then took off her hat at last.

"State your name, date and place of birth and your occupation, please," the Ministry clerk, a tall, grey-haired witch asked her as Helen was seated in the witness stand.

"Helena McGregor, born in Vernio, Italy in May 1968, I currently teach history and arts at a muggle high-school in _Rainyhill_, California."

At first Helen, Hermione, Ron and George each gave their account on the events from February and answered the occasional questions of the Judges of the Wizengamot. After that Rodolphus Lestrange was questioned by several members of the Wizengamot. He was in a good mood, though Helen noticed now and then that between his gleeful smirks and mad laughters he looked tired and resigned. When asked what he was doing in Mexico, he simply said he was visiting friends, and as to what he was doing and where he had been staying during the last months of Voldemort's reign, he only gave an arrogant grin without a reply. This was repeated couple of times and Helen saw some of the Wizengamot members exchange weird nodds and determined looks.

This way the whole hearing didn't exceed three hours and when Elphias Doge, the honorary president of the Wizengamot announced the end, Helen was happy and relieved that it all went well, that even the spell providing the fake names of her Sunnydale friends seemed to have worked, although...

"_Robert Miles?! Duffy Winters?! Sander Farris?! Wilma Gugenberg?!_" Helen was fretting and foaming at Kingsley. "Could you possibly have come up with something less original and more stupid?"

Kingsley looked at her apologetically. "I'm sorry, we did the names at the last minute. Still, it's highly unlikely that anyone here knows them, so..."

"Yes, we can hope that."

* * *

><p>The next hearing was set for the other day, though neither Helen, nor George, Hermione nor Ron had an idea what the Judges of the Wizengamot were hoping to achieve this time, since Rodolphus made it quite clear that he would not answer any of their questions concerning his stay abroad. In the opinion of the four of them he should have been simply sent back to Azkaban, end of story. Nevertheless on the next day they again took their seats on the witness bank and waited for the hearing to start. Rodolphus had not been brought in and to their surprise it was Kingsley who addressed the audience now:<p>

"Ladies and gentlemen, I will not beat around the bush much. We all were here yesterday and heard what Mr. Lestrange would – or rather would not – tell us. However, given his position among the Death Eaters there is a strong feeling among some of us that it might be crucial to employ all possible means at our hands to find out, especially concerning his mysterious task for You-Know-Who."

Helen turned at the others, a question in her eyes, but it seemed that they neither knew what this was all about.

But then Kingsley continued: "And there certainly are means to find out," he said slowly and firmly, underlining every word. And suddenly Helen thought she might know where this was going. Her eyes met Hermione's, obviously the younger witch had guessed herself.

Kingsley looked into the audience shortly, then his eyes stopped at the four witnesses, before he turned his look back at the rows in the centre. "We are considering the use of veritaserum in this case," he said.

For a brief moment there was silence in the room, but it only took a few seconds, then everyone seemed to have burst into frantic talks with their neighbours. Helen and Hermione stared at Kingsley in disbelief, George and Ron shrugged merely. Helen watched some of the Wizengamot members she had noticed yesterday nodding at each other, and now she realized why.

"You can't do that," she said loudly, yet only Kingsley and a few people in the front rows heard her. "There are wizarding laws," she added and now the audience began to notice her.

Kingsley did not stop her, in fact he looked as if he had been expecting this and he nodded slightly to her that she may continue. She got up: "There are laws that clearly forbid the use of veritaserum in trials or in questionings, I did not think it would be necessary to remind you of that – in this place of all places."

"But this is a special case!" Someone from the red-cloaked and red-caped Wizengamot members yelled.

"That's not the point," she said even louder. "There are reasons why it's not permitted. Good reasons."

"Aren't you curious to know what Lestrange was doing all the time?" Someone else asked.

Helen suppressed a laughter. "Precisely, we are talking of Rodolphus Lestrange here, one of the best, if not the best and the fastest legilimens, trained by Voldemort himself. Do you really think you could get the truth out of him that easily? No. You would never know whether what he says is really what happened, you could never truly rely on his account even with the potion. There are ways, and I'm sure he's no stranger to them, to secure oneself against it... Plus it would set an example, and some years later we'll find ourselves handling all of the hearings as _special cases_, using the veritaserum as it suits us and without thinking, because it's easier... No, I'm sorry, but this is wrong. It is probably not up to me, as you," she looked at the Wizengamot, "already seem to have made up your mind, but know that I don't support this," she said calmly, then nodded at Kingsley and sat down again, she was done.

"They don't need your support!" Someone shouted from the upper rows of the audience. "You were a nutcase two years ago!" Helen went pale. Few people laughed, and the fevered talks aroused again.

"Will you please leave this room?" Kingsley addressed the person who had spoken last. Helen did not turn around to see who it was. All the calm and the courage suddenly left her and she sank deeper into the bank she was sitting on. Hermione patted her on the shoulder clumsily.

"Please," Elphias Doge said and hammered on his desk, "let the Minister finish."

"Thank you. And thank you, Miss McGregor, for your remarks," Kingsley began, "please note that we are aware of the delicacy of this step. And we do not wish to undertake it lightly. We have therefore decided to take a vote." Again there were comments and cries from the audience, some obviously supportive, others dismissive.

"Oh, no," Hermione murmured and rolled her eyes. She had already witnessed these "votes" at the Ministry during her internship, they all had been quite ridiculous, and if measured by any democratic standards they would fall flat. And so it should be this time as well.

First Kingsley asked every one present in the room (presuming boldly that all people attending the trial were interested in the case of Rodolphus Lestrange in one way or another and thus should be given the possibility to decide about his fate) who would wish to participate in the vote – that is who had a clear opinion on the matter including all fifty Wizengamot members – to put a note with his or her name into a goblet in the middle of the room. Afterwards the goblet would – similar to drawing lots – spit out 33 persons who then were allowed to hand in the actual vote.

Helen frowned at this peculiar vote proceeding. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to her, but without much further nagging she along with the others put her name into the shining goblet. As it seemed – and after overhearing some of the weird small-talks between the visitors yesterday Helen didn't wonder – not everybody did so. There were quite a few wizards and witches, who remained sitting on their seats, watching and observing the others curiously.

Once the goblet had chosen all 33 wizards able to vote, only Ron off the four of them was among them.

"Yess!" He exclaimed pleased, when Elphias Doge read his name, as if he had won the highest prize in a tombola. Hermione gave him a hard look.

"I do hope for your sake that you will put the right thing on your vote, Ronald," she hissed at him.

"Yes, or there will be no hanky-panky for two weeks, Ronald" George added in a strict tone. Helen hit him with her elbow.

"Don't disappoint us," Hermione said, more mildly this time and Ron appeared confused for a moment.

"Well, don't look at me," George murmured, "I'd vote all for it, so either way you're gonna disappoint someone... then again, I'm used to it, so... do what you want."

Ron turned at Helen at last, looking a bit helpless. "Do what you think is right," she said calmly, "and that would be to vote against it, just so you know," she added in a small voice.

"Ronald Weasley!" Elphias Doge repeated the name louder this time, and Ron finally hurried towards another smaller goblet to put his vote in.

Much to everyone's surprise, but probably most to Helen's the voters did decide against the use of veritaserum. It was close, fifteen had voted for it, eighteen against. Kingsley and some of the Wizengamot members looked clearly disappointed. At last they brought Rodolphus in to pronounce the sentence, which had been expected – life imprisonment in Azkaban. There were satisfied murmurs to be heard afterwards, especially among some elderly witches and wizards, who might have known Rodolphus or experienced his treatment in the far-off past.

Helen and the others were just leaving the courtroom when Rodolphus' voice sounded inside her head: "I won't be in jail forever, you know." She turned around to look at him, but his lips weren't moving as he yet continued: "And when I get out, I'll finish with you, and your _Mr. Miles_ from _Rainyhill_."

His voice nevertheless sent shiver through her, it was full of hatred, perky and – for someone who was going to spend the rest of his life among happiness-sucking dementors – unusually self-assured. But she managed to reply verbally. "Then I suggest you better hurry."

* * *

><p>The next day was a Sunday and Helen spent it walking through the streets of London, then in the evening she called Giles and when she hung up around two in the morning, she was astonished to realize that they had been talking – about all sorts of things, and strangely not about demons, monsters or other "work", but about nice things, about normal things – for almost four hours.<p>

On Monday Helen was supposed to meet Rebecca Gregson in her office. She had floo-ed the young witch about a week ago and asked her, if she could get or make a list of all the council-books, specifying in which household each of them had been found. She wasn't really sure what she was expecting to discover, but she thought that it might be useful to get a better picture of which Death Eaters had been piling those books.

On Monday afternoon Edgar Thornton walked the narrow corridor on the fifth floor of the Ministry, leading to the office of Rebecca Gregson. She had asked him to come, she didn't tell him why, but he assumed it had to do something with the infamous books from the Library of the Watchers Council. He knocked shortly at Ms. Gregson's office door, then entered. A bit irritated he saw that Ms. Gregson was having another visitor, a woman, who got up from her armchair, just as Rebecca addressed him: "Ah, here you are."

The other woman turned around now and Edgar Thornton blinked for a moment. _It can't be..._ _Emily... Good Lord.._. The image in front of him took his breath away for a few seconds and he was trying to compose himself again. If he didn't know better, he could swear that his younger sister was standing right there, in front of him, smiling friendly, a little shy perhaps, just the way she used to and as he could remember it from the better days... or even from the day when she had announced happily that she had got engaged to the muggle... Everything looked the same: the form of her mouth, the tiny dimples beneath her cheeks and on her chin, the high cheek bones, even the peculiar "Thornton" line of her brows, the pale delicate skin, and the very shade of her light brown hair – he wondered whether it too used to change its colour during the year as Emily's did – dark brown in the summers, and light, almost with a touch of blond in the winters... But there were the eyes, the dark brown, almost black piercing eyes... Suddenly a strange feeling overcame him that he couldn't quite class. Was it shame? Remorse? Guilt even? Those were all things he felt rarely as he never regretted anything, never questioned his or his family's decisions, never doubted his and their actions.

"Helen, this is Mr. Thornton, my predecessor," Rebecca introduced him.

It was as if someone washed away the smile from her face, he saw it and though he didn't want to admit it – it hurt. She was taken entirely by surprise, that was obvious, and she looked as if she didn't know how to react

The silence was becoming a little awkward, as Rebecca noticed Helen's discomfort, and she forgot to introduce her. She couldn't know that it wasn't necessary, that the grey-haired old wizard knew very well that it was his niece standing opposite to him, the daughter of his little sister, whom he hasn't met before.

He tried a smile and offered his hand: "Miss-ah...," suddenly it occurred to him that he didn't even remember the name of that muggle.

Helen hesitated for a brief moment, then took his hand, swallowed hardly, to keep the acerbity out of her voice: "Helen McGregor."

An hour later the uncle and the niece were sitting in a London café, trying to have a conversation. Helen was watching the old man as he took her coat off and went to a wardrobe in a corner of the room to hang it there. He was very elegantly dressed, perhaps a bit old fashioned, but in a nice way. She also knew that he was supposed to be almost eighty years old, but – as was often the case with wizards – he looked much younger.

"How do you know about those books?" He asked when he returned and sat down at their table. He sounded rather curious than suspicious, yet Helen wasn't sure how much she should tell, what would be wise or what Giles would want him to know. On the other hand he was in touch with Giles' friend, James Robson, who knew there was a witch in Sunnydale and who would probably tell him sooner or later. So she settled for the truth, and – being glad to have something to say and not having to endure an embarrassing silence between them – she told him that while living in Sunnydale she got to know Giles, who was the watcher of the current vampire slayer and that they became friends (he need not to know the exact status of their relationship) and that at some point he happened to tell her about what Robson had found out.

"And you've come now to acquire some more details from Ms. Gregson?" He asked when she finished.

"No, well, not only. I had to come to attend the trial, so I thought I might stop by at her office as well," she replied.

"The trial?" Edgar Thornton asked wondering.

"The Lestrange trial," Helen said, assuming that he must know.

He furrowed his brows. "Lestrange? But isn't she dead?"

Helen looked confused. "No, it's Rodolphus Lestrange, husband of Bellatrix." Was it possible that there was a person who didn't know anything about it despite the wide publicity? There even was a special issue of the Prophet yesterday, dedicated only to Rodolphus' life and "work", the hearing and its outcome.

"Oh," he raised his head, but his tone was suggesting that he didn't really care. He must have noticed Helen's short bewilderment, for he added casually: "You see I don't read the papers."

"Well," she smiled, "it's not that terrible a loss."

"Yes, it really is not, is it? You would have thought that after their battle was fought and won they would finally get a grip of that Prophet."

Helen would agree with him, but one word did strike her strange. It might have been a mere slip, yet the way he said it disturbed her nonetheless.

"_Their_ battle? You mean the battle of Hogwarts, the last war, _our_ battle," she said.

"Your... battle," he said and his calm, almost indulgent voice made her angry. "_We_ kept out of it," he added and he made it sound as if that had been the wise, the sensible thing to do.

"How?" She asked, shaking her head. She did not understand.

"We didn't participate in it, we were without any interests in the entire affair."

"_Affair?_" She asked frowning at the strange, almost blasphemous choice of the word. The _affair_ had cost the lives of dozens of wizards, her friends, her brother...

"Yes. We Thorntons are impartial on principle."

"You mean to say cowards."

"No, we like to think of ourselves as... neutral."

"Oh, for God's sake, you're not Switzerland! You're... people!" She said loudly and a few muggles turned their heads curiously towards them. "How-how can you justify your existence at all? How can you live with yourself knowing that others died, that others fought for you so that you can live in that comfortable manor house forever more... what do you do all days sitting there?"

Edgar looked embarrassed around them, but not because he felt ashamed, but rather because he did not like the attention they were getting in the café. "Oh, we pursue our own occupations...," he replied in a low voice.

"Like what? Collecting snuffboxes?" Helen was outraged now and wasn't even really sure why. She got up, looked at him stubbornly, pressed her lips together, then paused for a second as if she was to say something more, but then just shook her head again, took her purse and left.

_So, this is the family then..._

* * *

><p>When she returned to her apartment after having walked for two hours to shake off the bitterness over the meeting with her uncle, she found a weird message in her voice mail. It was from Kingsley. He must have been speaking very loud, almost yelling into the speaker, overpronouncing every word: "Hi... Helen, this is Kingsley... I am calling you from Hermione's... tele-phone... Your floo isn't working... I hope you will get this message, if not, call Hermione back... wait... I guess... that doesn't make sense... well, you-you will get this message hopefully... I wanted to tell you that you can come to the Ministry tomorrow to speak with Travers. Two p.m., you can use one of the empty offices on the ninth floor. I asked Arthur and Ron to be there too, for security reasons... I hope you don't mind. Otherwise let me know. I don't think you should be alone with him... Alright. I'm done. Good bye..." There was some rustling, then Kingsley said: "Hermione? Where do I put this..." And that was the end.<p>

_Good, that's something at least,_ Helen thought. Hopefully the meeting with a former Death Eater would be more fruitful than the one with her family.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thanks for reading. Sorry for the unfortunate ending, I have already started the Travers-interview, but I have to give it some better thoughts, so I might need a few days to post the next one, but it will hopefully happen within a week :) anyways, let me know what you think of this chapter, it wasn't easy writing a HP-verse chapter, I'm not sure whether I got the characters right or authentic enough, as some of them are quite OCs.<em>


	33. Chapter 33: Secundus Travers

Chapter 33

Secundus Travers

_AN: Sorry for the awful delay. Also – sorry for the shortness this time, but I'm stuck with work and wanted to at least post a bit. I'm not very happy with it, and the last one, I guess I will be re-writing the whole Lestrange-trial and this Travers-talk later, right now I think it's not very convincing. Anyway it's still far from the end, therefore bear with me for still not revealing much :) still, hope you enjoy it a little at least._

* * *

><p>On the next day Helen was on her way to the arranged meeting with Secundus Travers. In the lift she once again looked over the list that Rebecca had given her. It seemed that the Traverses had got by far the largest part of the "lost" council books, almost the half out of one hundred and six volumes were found at the estates of Secundus Travers and his son Primus Travers. The rest of them had been scattered among a dozen of other Death Eaters households.<p>

When she entered the room that Kingsley had arranged for her to use for the questioning, Arthur and Ron were already there and behind them Secundus Travers sat on a chair, his hands were bound together at his back. It struck Helen immediately how different he was to Rodolphus. He was almost a handsome man, though Rodolphus wasn't exactly ugly himself, but his hatred and his maniac expressions were distorting his features most of the time. But Secundus looked more... normal, more down-to-earth, reasonable even. _He's a Death Eater, and there's no such thing as a reasonable Death Eater_, she reprehended herself immediately. He got up to his feet the moment he spotted her, but Arthur and Ron pushed him ungently back onto his chair.

"Hey!" He said indignantly. "Just because the Weasleys don't know any manners doesn't mean I can't be a gentleman when a lady walks in."

Ron snorted at him, while Helen walked around them to take a seat behind a large mahogany desk. The place was rather dark, there were no windows, neither real nor fake ones, an old bulb hung from the ceiling, spreading blinking light over the desk that didn't reach the corners of the small room. It felt a bit awkward and it reminded her of a muggle film she had watched some months ago during a sleepless night, where muggle lawyers were interrogating a criminal in a very similar setting. Though she was a former auror, she never before got to question anyone, that had always been left to some other of her colleagues. These weren't even the auror offices, it occurred to her and her thoughts began to drift away. _They wouldn't even let me use those anymore... Am I such a shame to them or is it simply because they don't have a spare room right now?_

"Helen? Helen?" Kingsley's voice woke her up. "Is everything alright? You have all you need? I have posted one other young auror outside the door, just in case or if you need to fetch some coffee or tea."

"Oh, is that what the aurors do these days? Finally making themselves useful, are they?" Secundus said casually, but Helen couldn't find the trace of a malicious grin she had been looking for on his face.

"Shut up, Travers," Kingsley snapped, "and behave yourself."

"Why should I? Will you then put me too into that ingenious re-integration program of yours? Teaching me to knit tiny cardigans for sodding house elves?" He smirked.

Ron cleared his throat at the remark, it sounded like he wanted to mask the initial urge to laugh.

"Yes," Helen said loudly to interrupt any upcoming quarrels, "thank you, Kingsley

Kingsley swallowed the curse he had had on his tongue after Secundus' words. "Anyway, good luck with this," he said to Helen before closing the door behind him.

Helen had spent almost the whole night thinking of what would be the best approach to a preferably fruitful conversation with Secundus and when she had finally fallen asleep, she still didn't have the answer.

"So," Secundus looked at her expectantly, almost as if he was hoping to be entertained in some way. "I must say I don't have the slightest idea what you could possibly want with me, but... I guess since you managed to get me out of that cave for a few hours I should be grateful nevertheless."

She was observing his face, still contemplating over how to start. "Quentin-ah... Travers," she finally spoke in a low voice. "Is he any relation of yours?"

Secundus raised his brows, clearly surprised at the question. "You know Quintus... Lucky you. I'm impressed," he said the last words with clear mockery in his voice, yet was watching Helen curiously now. Then he sighed. "Yes, unfortunately he is my cousin, though I'd rather not be associated with him."

"He is a wizard then," Helen said.

Secundus smirked. "No, he's not a wizard. He's a shame."

Helen frowned.

"He is a squib," Secundus explained, the disgust in his voice was well audible.

Helen opened her mouth. She did not expect that.

"He's a squib?" She repeated after a moment of silence.

"Yes," Secundus sighed again, "do you know how embarrassing that feels? A Travers – a squib? Can you imagine what a blemish that is to our family?"

"No, not really, I can't," Helen replied coldly. "How did he become the head of the Watchers Council then?"

Helen saw his eyes widen. He was silent for a brief moment. "So you know about that too!" Now Secundus observed her face, clearly intrigued. "How did you find out?"

"Hey, you're not the one asking questions here," Arthur rebuked him.

"Wasn't I supposed to?" Helen asked and watched him carefully. It was obvious that he was thinking hard about what he should reply.

He shrugged. "Well, I'm afraid I don't know much about it. It was my uncle who handled it," he finally said evasively, trying to sound casual, but Helen could tell that he knew more than he was admitting.

"And how exactly did... your uncle... handle it?" She tried again, although she had a strong feeling that she wouldn't discover much.

Secundus' mouth twitched into a smug smile. "I am sorry," he said nonchalantly, "like I said, I have no idea."

"Yet why do I find that so hard to believe?" She asked, placing the list with the Council books in front of him.

"What is that?" He asked and this time he didn't look as self-confident as before, but he shifted rather uncomfortably, and threw a distrustful glare at the papers, fearing what else Helen might have known that he would never have expected her to.

"Take a look," she offered, "I think you'll find you know exactly what that is. And I also think," she spoke in a slow and calm voice, "you might want to explain to us why you don't like to be associated with your squib cousin when he seems to be so very handy – borrowing you all those books..."

Secundus stared at the few parchment pages that she had placed in front of him as if he was trying to understand what it was. Obviously it took him a few seconds. "Oh," he finally murmured, "so you sniffed those out as well," he said quietly, and sounded rather bored and unimpressed, yet also resigned.

"How did you get them?"

"Let's just say – for once my embarrassing cousin wasn't completely useless," he admitted and grinned complacently.

Helen looked at him expectantly, she waited for him to explain it better how exactly those books had left the Council's Library and found their way into those Death Eaters households, yet Secundus' look made clear that he would not elaborate on it any further.

Helen sighed. She was afraid of this, but still had hoped that he might talk – as there was no point for him to keep anything secret anymore, he had been sentenced to life imprisonment anyway, nothing worse could happen to him. Maybe he would answer the next one, she thought.

"What-ah... did you need those books for? There were over one hundred volumes, I would have thought that with Dark Lord constantly assigning you to do other stuff you'd have hardly had any time for hobby reading...," she said casually.

Secundus was looking her straight in the eyes, but his lips wouldn't move. For a moment she had the feeling that he was about to use legilimency the way Rodolphus did after the trial, and talk to her in her mind, but she was wrong. Secundus remained staring at her and silent.

She took the list of the books back into her hands and threw a quick glance at it. "Tell me," she said, then raised her head at him and smiled as friendly as she could manage, "please, you see I'm just curious... why... what exactly did you want to read about summoning demons for?"

Secundus didn't break the eye-contact, but it felt like talking to a wall.

"Were you just looking for some ideas for Voldemort's birthday? Or did you want a pet from Hell?"

At the mention of his late master's name Secundus flinched a little, but didn't say a thing.

"Answer!" Ron slapped his had from behind.

"Ron!" Arthur reprimanded him and Helen glared at the young man.

Secundus smirked finally. "I'm not telling you a thing."

Helen shook her head impatiently. "I don't understand why not! You have nothing to worry about, it's not going to be used against you anymore," she said trying to persuade him.

"Well, neither is it going to help me," he said sarcastically, "so if you don't mind I'd like to return now to my cell."

"No! We're not finished yet-" she said louder this time.

"Forget it! It was rubbish, and it didn't come to that anyway, so..."

"Come to what?" She asked, but Secundus merely shook his head and got up to his feet.

"I thought you had something interesting to discuss with me, not that balderash-"

"Will you sit down now and tell me-" She began shouting when she suddenly noticed his eyes darken and his face looked menacing now. He reminded her of Rodolphus just a little bit.

He turned at Arthur. "Bring me back to Azkaban," he said coldly.

Arthur looked at Helen with a question in his eyes. She did not want to give up.

"So shall we return those books to the Council Library then, do you think?" She asked. "They surely will be pleased to have them back... After all the council assumed they were destroyed in a fire... Your cousin will probably be very relieved to see it wasn't so..." Secundus wasn't looking at her, but kept staring somewhere at Arthur's chest, his lips pressed tightly together, determined not to utter another word. "Or perhaps he will have to explain a whole lot of things then... Do you reckon it might put him into a delicate position?"

It was impossible to tell what Secundus was thinking at those words, his face was uncanny. He looked like a stony statue. It was not likely that she would get him to say anything more.

Finally Helen nodded to Arthur resignedly and he and Ron led Secundus out of the room to organize his transport back to Azkaban.

_So much for the high hopes I had put in this meeting_, Helen thought sighing loudly.

* * *

><p>Kingsley had asked her before to report to him about the outcome of the questioning, so she got up and headed to the Minister's office.<p>

"He won't say anything," she said to Kingsley after having retold him the short and rather futile talk with Travers. "I guess he feels he's got nothing to lose, or I don't know... if only there was a way to make him talk..."

"There is," Kingsley said slowly.

Helen looked at him bewildered, then understood. "No, we're not discussing it. You think that I would even consider using it after what I had said at the trial?" She said rather indignantly. "No, veritaserum is not the right path," she added thoughtfully. "Besides, I think that just like Rodolphus he too might know his ways around the potion. After all they had been trained for cases like this since many years..."

"I-ah... I have initiated another vote in Lestrange's case," Kingsley said quietly.

"What?" Helen looked at him incredulously. "So you are going to let people vote for so long until the outcome suits you?"

"Of course not," he replied, a little outraged himself now. "No, you voted out the veritaserum, that is out of the question in that case now-"

"I should hope it is out of the question in _any_ case," she said.

"I honestly don't understand your attitude, Helen," Kingsley said a bit irritated, "one would expect that you of all people would want to find out what Lestrange was doing there, what he was doing all this time abroad, where he was while Voldemort and the others fought the battle."

"I do, I would want to know, surely, but it is not so important to me that I would overthrow some of our fundamental laws to find out... I said it all two days ago... and there's not that big a difference between making a person drink that potion to talk and an Imperius-curse, both are unforgivable assaults on a person's free will-"

"But Rodolphus Lestrange had used far worse things on people-"

"That's not how it works, you should know it... Besides, for the question it's entirely irrelevant who it is – this time it's Rodolphus, next time it could be someone else – another _special case_, and the time after that yet someone else, someone innocent perhaps, whom you would make to say things, to spit out his most intimate secrets that are no crimes only to find out that he's not the one you're looking for..."

"It would never come to that," Kingsley assured.

"Yeah," she smiled, "I've heard that one before... It would come to that sooner than you think, Kingsley," she said wearily.

Kingsley watched her for a moment without replying. "Why then do I have the feeling that you won't like this either?"

"Like what?" She asked suspiciously.

"I've initiated another vote, not on veritaserum," he said loudly to stop her from interrupting him again, "Tiberius Ogden, and some of the other members of the Wizengamot suggested that – given that we don't know what Lestrange was doing, and his history and particularly cruel nature – that we ought to alter his memories."

She stared at him for a few seconds, then to his surprise she smiled amused. "Your feeling was right then," she said, "I think from what I've just said it's not hard to guess that I wouldn't support such invasion, but then again – I am a nutcase and you couldn't care less about what I think," she added casually.

Kingsley glared at her. "Please, you're not still sour because of that incident, are you?" He dressed her down. "And self-pity doesn't suit you."

"No, it really doesn't," she sighed.

"Look. To many of us it seems like too high a risk – to do nothing. Should he ever manage to escape again and to... resume whatever it was he was doing... he could be extremely dangerous. And I think it's not that absurd to guess that he'd be after you again as well," Kingsley explained his and the Wizengamot's motives patiently.

Helen unwillingly remembered Rodolphus' threat from two days ago. _And when I get out, I'll finish with you...and your Mr. Giles..._

"And besides," Kingsley continued and gave her a meaningful look, "to show you that I _do_ care what you think, I decided to offer you a seat on the special committee that will determine after a thorough discussion, consideration and examination of the wizarding laws whether we should or should not obliviate him."

Helen opened her mouth, clearly taken by surprise, but also not sure what to say. She suspected that this was merely some kind of a diversion, to make her feel like she would play an active part in the final decision, whereas for all she knew all the other members of the commission had already made up their mind in favour of Kingsley's proposition.

"Your first meeting is on coming Thursday," he spoke when she didn't, "I expect the committee to come to a decision in three weeks."

"I cannot be here that long," she finally said, looking him straight in the eyes, wondering whether he had known that she wouldn't be able to stay before he asked her. "I have a job elsewhere and I can't stay. I'm leaving tomorrow morning."

Yet his disappointment seemed genuine as he said: "Oh, now that's a shame! And I thought I'd do you a favour, I thought this was important to you."

"It is," she stressed again, "and I appreciate it, really. Could I make a suggestion?"

"What kind of a suggestion?" Kingsley asked cautiously.

"Could perhaps someone – someone I choose – replace me? Someone with whom I see eye to eye on this?"

Kingsley frowned. "I don't see why not," he spoke slowly, "whom did you have in mind?"

"Hermione."

"Hermione?" Kingsley repeated perplexed.

"Yes. I trust her on this, we think alike when it comes to these things."

"But...," Kingsley still wasn't able to hide his surprise, on the other hand he couldn't find any solid arguments against the choice, "she's rather young..."

Helen raised her left brow, telling him so that that was a lame objection.

"And isn't she studying? Are you sure she would want to take such responsibility on her right now?"

"I would of course ask her first... But can you promise me that – if she agrees – she's in?"

Kingsley nodded at last. "Alright. Though I must warn you, or better her, other members might be nagging about it, she will have a lot to cope with to be taken seriously among all those old codgers."

Helen smiled amused. "Well, it was you who chose them, weren't you?"

"Touché," Kingsley grinned. "Nevertheless, I tried to choose wisely, I only took in people in whose judgment I have and have always had the utmost trust, no matter what...," he added and smiled slightly, looking her in the eyes and bowed his head just a little bit as to point out that that also included herself.

Her eyes widened a bit at the unexpected confession. "I..."

"Don't thank me," he said, trying to sound strict and got up to his feet. "So, and now I must throw you out, I'm sorry, I have an appointment with Minerva and don't even have a clue what about, and you know how she frowns upon tardiness."

"Right," Helen stood up too, "of course, give her my best regards."

"I will," Kingsley walked over to open the door for her.

In the doorframe Helen turned one more time at him. "Oh, one more thing. Could you let me know if Secundus Travers has any visitors in Azkaban? Also I'd like to know about every single piece of his correspondence – if you have nothing to object. I'd like to know whether he'd try to contact his cousin."

"Alright, I'll see to it. He's not allowed any visitors, but it should be no issue to intercept his letters."

"Thanks."

* * *

><p>Later that evening Helen met with Hermione, who didn't even try to hide how happy, pleased and proud she was that Helen had thought of offering her the seat in Kingsley's committee. And although she had a lot to do at the moment with her exams, nothing could prevent her from accepting the offer.<p>

The next morning Helen said goodbye to London, again she took a tube to Heathrow to catch a plane to L.A.

And it was on the plane when something occurred to her. _Didn't Giles say that the Ministry Department that was handling the Council matters was also responsible for making sure that no wizard nor anyone with wizarding background would enter the Council? How then did Quentin Travers, whose family was far from being unknown to any wizard, manage to become the head of the Council? And when was this? _The thoughts were swirling fast in her head. And then her face turned dark. _Could it be? Could my charming _"neutral"_ uncle have something to do with it? _She wondered. _After our short chat I certainly wouldn't put it past him, _she thought gloomily.

* * *

><p>When Helen arrived at her house in Sunnydale in the early evening, it was already dark outside. She had called Giles from the airport to tell him that she would come to the library later to meet up and talk and... possibly other things too... First she wanted to unpack her things, check her mail and freshen up a bit. She was just about to grab a few last things and her purse before leaving, when there was a loud knock on the door. She smiled to herself thinking fondly of Giles. <em>So, he couldn't wait any longer, could he<em>... and she said loudly: "Come in!"

She threw a quick glance in the mirror, and froze.

A gleefully grinning face of Angelus was looking back at her. "Well, that was even easier than I would have thought!"

* * *

><p><em>AN: Uff, I'm certainly happy to have Helen back in Sunnydale, as HP-verse seems so much harder to write. Thank you for reading, do leave a review, comment, how do you find these last "Ministry-bits".<em>


	34. Chapter 34: A narrow escape

Chapter 34

A narrow escape

_AN: Title sucks again. Thanks for the last reviews, and no, I'm not working for the Ministry :) Or at least not knowingly, might be that they have got me imperiused... who knows... in that case of course I have a good excuse and cannot really be held responsible for the course of the story :D_

* * *

><p>Helen was staring at Angelus' face in the mirror, as he strolled up towards her. It was the same face as Angel's, and yet he looked so very differently. Also his eyes seemed darker and clearer, piercing at her in a way that it almost felt as if they were stinging into her. If ever there was something to the saying that someone's mere look can hurt - this seemed to be such a case.<p>

She gulped, then frantically slipped her hand into the pocket of her skirt, when she realized the horrible fact – she had left her wand in the trousers, that she had taken off earlier when she was changing her clothes after the long flight.

Angel was only a few steps away, yet taking his time as he was striding slowly towards her, as if he knew that she was powerless against him.

"I have been thirsting after this for so long," he said and his eyes wandered hungrily to her neckline. Helen found that she couldn't move, the terror of her desperate situation seemed to have paralyzed her completely.

Angel grabbed her on the elbow and pulled her closer to him. She closed her eyes. She sensed his fingers brush her neck, then heard him exhale with relish "Oh" as he inhaled her scent and moaned in what she thought was a pleasant anticipation.

She clenched and all her muscles tensed as she expected to feel his teeth on her skin any second now, when she suddenly heard a loud cry "No!" and opened her eyes and realized that it was her own voice that said that. As if some part of her had just woken up, determined that this would not be the end.

"What-" Angel pulled away a little, but without letting go of her.

And then she yelled: "_Averto!_" A light flash hit Angel in the chest and he fell back. Helen stared for a split second, surprised herself, then turned around to run upstairs in hope that she would get to her wand before Angel would be back on his feet. Yet she didn't even reach the top step, when she was grabbed by her ankle and pulled down by his strong hands and then turned around rather roughly to face him. He looked inflamed with rage.

He packed her at her shoulders and shook her whole body furiously. "Don't... ever... do... that... again..." He foamed.

"_Stupefy,_" Helen said, but apart from a short stream of blue sparkles nothing happened. Blood was dripping out of her nose and she was losing her focus. The times when she could perform any spell without her wand, without a word and most importantly without any negative effect on herself, were over.

Angel's face now turned into its demonic shape just before he grasped her head again shouting: "This will teach ya!"

Her eyes widened as she quickly realized that he was about to snap her neck in the fury.

She closed her eyes again and whispered, thinking at the same time that she did not want this to be her last word: "_Detineo_."

There was a loud rumbling, and when she opened her eyes, Angel just landed on the floor at the bottom of the staircase, he seemed unconscious, but Helen didn't want to lose time checking. She turned around, and she almost fell down herself as the staircase seemed to be swinging under her feet like a ropeway, her vision got fuzzy. When she reached the top floor her knees gave in. She didn't really know how she managed to crawl across the hall to the door of her bedroom. She was experiencing the unpleasant but only too familiar sensation of too low blood pressure and the aggravating dizziness it was causing. She felt weak, her head was droning and she was shivering uncontrollably when she heard noises and moans from downstairs, that were without doubt the signs that Angel was coming to himself. She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus her blurry vision to locate the bed, where the trousers laid upon. When she got to it, she grabbed in the pockets and found her wand, then supported herself at the edge of the bed to stand up. She raised her wand, closed her eyes and disapparated.

* * *

><p>Xander, Willow, Buffy and Cordelia turned their heads towards the racks at the back of the library as a pop sounded from there, followed by several loud bangs. All four of them got to their feet and Giles appeared in the doorframe of his office. He was holding a book and didn't raise his eyes from it, when he said loudly: "Xander, Cordelia, if you are again doing... <em>things<em>... back there...," he began in a strict voice, when an annoyed cough interrupted him. Only now he saw that the two suspects were standing there around the main table along with Buffy and Willow.

"Ouch, oh," Helen's weak voice reached them from the back, "Merlin, I really need to sort out my locating again or I might get myself killed one day, or worse – splinched," they heard her murmur.

Giles threw the book on the counter and hurried towards the back racks, so did the others. There right in front of the back exit door Helen was half-laying half-sitting on the floor, with her back turned to them, supporting herself on her elbows, just about to get up. Around her several books had been thrown out of the two closest racks, which now looked dangerously unstable, one of them tipped over and was now leant on the wall. The small trolley that used to stand next to the door laid smashed on the floor.

For a brief moment the five Scoobies just stared, then Cordelia was the first to find her speech again: "I think someone owes me and Xander an apology," she said smugly and looked expectantly at Giles, but he ignored her.

Instead he helped Helen get up. "What happened?" He asked and gasped as he saw her white face. She was shivering on her whole body, her blouse was trickled with blood that was still flowing from her nose.

She looked at the other four and suddenly wished they would not be there – that they would not see her like this, it was bad enough that Giles did – these bloody apparitions in the library were almost becoming a recurring theme with her.

"Ah-Angel," she said.

"What about him?" Buffy asked, her face hardened at the mention of his name.

"He was at my house," Helen replied and shook her head desperately, "I was so stupid, I thought it was you," she looked up at Giles, "and invited him in."

Now it was Giles' face that went dark, she noticed him stiffen.

"What happened?" Buffy asked gloomily.

Helen furrowed her brows, passing in her head over the few moments and the exchange with the vampire. "I-eh... don't know, I don't understand really...," she said slowly.

The others exchanged confused looks.

"What do you mean?" Giles asked. "What did he do to you?"

"He-he was about to bite me, I didn't have my wand... and then I tried a-a forfending spell to-to keep him off me... a-and it worked," she said, clearly still amazed herself. Then she shortly described what had followed afterwards. She heard Giles exhale strangely as she mentioned how Angel wanted to snap her neck.

"I heard him coming to himself just before I found my wand and disapparated," she finished.

They all looked at each other, many things were mirrored in their eyes. Hardness and determination were – not quite successfully – trying to hide the exasperation and hurt in Buffy's, frustration and compassion read in Willow's, expectation and something saying "I told you so" in Xander's.

"Anyway," Helen tried to smile, "what's new with you?" She asked with an unconvincing lightness in her voice.

"Not much," Cordelia replied casually, "Buffy liquidated her almost step-father-"

Buffy raised her eyes in horror, just as Willow hurried to defend her: "He was a robot!"

"Yeah, at least I didn't put a love spell on the whole female Sunnydale-population to make Cordelia like me again," Buffy grumbled, "and almost got myself killed by a mad bunch of worshipping crazy women."

Xander scratched his head embarrassed, it seemed that for the first time he had nothing to retort.

"Or turned Buffy into a rat," Willow added, throwing him a meaningful look. Helen opened her mouth without knowing really what to say. She had learned meanwhile, that sentences like those didn't necessarily have to be jokes in Sunnydale.

Only now Giles spoke at last: "Y-yes, we can talk about that-uh... later."

They moved again to walk back to their research table – judging by the huge piles of books they all had been in full research mode when Helen's arrival interrupted them. The four Scoobies sat down back to their books, while Giles motioned to Helen to follow him into his office. There she threw a quick glance back into the library to make sure none of the kids had followed them, and when she turned around Giles immediately pulled her into his arms and kissed her, then without a word he gently pushed her onto the only armchair in the small room, then disappeared for a moment and returned with a wet handkerchief, knelt in front of her and softly cleaned away the last blood trails from her face, while her heart was throbbing wildly at the touch.

"How was the rest of your trip?" He asked when he finished.

She told him about the semi-fruitful meeting with Secundus Travers and about the discovery that Quentin Travers was a squib. They would have to discuss the whole council affair more properly and extensively quite soon. She left out the threat that Rodolphus had pronounced after his trial.

"Giles?" Buffy's loud voice calling him interrupted them.

Giles gave Helen an apologetic look, then got up and walked out into the library. "What is it? Did you find something interesting?" He asked.

"No," Buffy replied, "nothing on the book-front." From her look Giles could tell that she was about to say or suggest something of which she already knew he would not agree with. "I think I should go to Helen's house, he might still be there."

"I don't think that would be wise," he answered cautiously, he wasn't at all sure what her motives were. "Besides, I doubt very much that you would find him there. He probably left as soon as he found that Helen was gone."

"Yes, but she said he had blacked out, maybe he's...," _hurt_, Buffy thought, when a huge bulge built in her throat when she realized, that once again she was thinking rather of Angel, not of Angelus, not wanting to admit that the former was no more a part of the latter, that Angel was gone.

Giles looked at her sympathetically. He felt that she wasn't ready yet. Even if he would send her, even if she met Angel now, she wouldn't really be ready to face him. He suspected that she wanted to see him, that she would want to seek him out to talk to him, to see once more, whether there really wasn't a tiny last bit of her boyfriend left in him, because it was still too hard, too painful for her to accept, especially when she thought that technically _she_ was the one to blame for what he had become. On the other hand he knew that the more she would see and experience now of the true Angelus, the sooner she might be able to part with Angel, to let go, but still...

"We talked about this, Buffy," he said softly and walked closer over to her, "I think you should stay out of the streets, just for a while."

"Ok, right," she smiled feeling awkward, as if caught at doing something the wrong way on purpose, "... you're-eh... probably right."

Giles fatherly laid his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently, then walked over to the table, where the three others were sitting, only Willow however seemed to be still working, Xander was staring blankly at the pages of an old book in front of him and Cordelia was drawing little flowers all over her notes, looking bored, then observed her finger nails and frowning she murmured: "I should have brought my nail polish..."

"Have you found anything?" Giles asked them, ignoring once again Cordelia's remark.

Xander and Cordelia merely looked up and threw him an irritated glare each, while Willow shook her head desperately and said: "No, nothing at all, no gypsy curses in here."

"And no mention of any Klaberdash either," Cordelia said.

"It's Calderash, Cordelia, I wrote it down for you, twice," Giles replied, trying to stay patient.

"Oh," Cordelia raised her brows somewhat surprised, but then said, "well, I'm sure them neither."

Giles and Willow exchanged short nods, silently agreeing that Willow would check Cordelia's pile again, to make sure there really was no reference to the correct Romani name.

"Alright, I think you did enough for today, it's quite late, I'd say you go home," Giles said, then turned at Willow, who was about to protest as she wanted to finish her research. "You can take those books home with you, Willow, if you like, just-uh... take good care of them and bring them back tomorrow."

He shot a quick look towards his office and Willow seemed to have understood that he wished for him and Helen to be left alone at last. She smiled understandingly. "Ok," she said, stood up and began to pack her things and the few books into her backpack, while the others waited for her.

"We'll meet tomorrow after your classes again," Giles said as they were about to go.

"Yeah, I don't see what's the point of it, we're not gonna find anything, we don't even know what we're looking for," Cordelia groused.

Xander looked at her. "Motivational speaker, 'eh?" He said and grinned.

"What?" She asked annoyed, when they finally swung the library door to leave.

* * *

><p><em>Helen was running fast. Every few yards she would stumble as the tunnel, that resembled very much the one leading from Hogwarts to the Shrieking Shack, was drowned in almost total darkness. A couple of times she ran against the wall when she didn't realize the tunnel taking a sharp turn to the right. Only with her hands she kept feeling around for the stony walls of the narrow path ahead. Dark <em>and _narrow – she was trying not to think of how much she always feared those two things. She heard his footsteps following her, judging by the sound of them he wasn't in a hurry, but neither did she hear him stumble or hit the wall at any point, it was as if he could see perfectly well the way in front of him. And he was laughing. _

_"Wait for me on the other side, Helen, will ya?" He drawled and she shivered. From the sound of his voice she could tell that his face had turned into its vampire-features._

_Without stopping she turned around to see whether he was catching up. But naturally she couldn't see anything. Suddenly she tripped over something and fell and then the something moaned quietly. "Helen..." Goose bumps ran through her whole body. _

_"Claudius..."_

_"You-you're not... safe," he whispered heavily. She could not see his face, hesitantly she reached out her hands to feel for it. The moment her fingers touched his cheeks, she knew it was him indeed, her hand wandered downwards to his lips, they were wet with some liquid that seemed to be flowing out his nose, it wasn't hard to guess that it was blood. On his forehead, right above his right eye was a wet large wound. Though she couldn't but feel it with her hands, she knew it was the wound from the dreadful car accident seven years ago. "It wasn't worth it...," he said and she froze at those words. They were all the wrong way round. "Run, you must run, you're not safe here." Then his left hand grabbed hers and gently pushed her away. "You must go!"_

_"No," she whispered and it was not so much a protest against leaving, rather than a desperate wish that this all not be true._

_Angel's footsteps echoed louder this time and reminded her again why she was here. _

_"Go," Claudius said one last time, sounding more firm, almost angry now. _

_She got up and began to run again. Soon she could feel the floor under her feet rising gradually – the end of the tunnel was close. And indeed after a minute or two she saw in front of her a shining silhouette of a door. She couldn't hear Angel's footsteps anymore and felt a little relieved. Nevertheless she sped up, thinking that once she would reach the door and what she assumed had to be sunlight on the other side of it, she would be safe. _

_When she reached the door and placed her hand on the doorknob, her heart stopped. She saw a shadow behind it – someone just stepped to the door at its other side. She let go of the doorknob and in panic turned around. Angel's laughter sounded behind her. He was getting closer. She turned back and startled she noticed that the feet on the other side of the door were gone. Could it be that she had just been imagining things? Maybe there was no one there, it only had been a trick of light. With her heart beating fast and loud she pushed down the doorknob carefully and with a loud and unpleasant creak opened the door._

_Something was wrong. There was no sunlight. Instead she was standing in the doorframe of a large, old and rather decrepit looking room, with timber floor board and dark wood panelling. Right above her a bulb hung off the ceiling that was spreading a very bright light, which however did not reach the far corners of the room. Therefore she did not notice immediately the person who was sitting in one of the corners, his hands tied at the back of the chair. Above him a grand old oil painting hung on the wall that she didn't recognize, with a large branch of a cherry-tree in the foreground. Only when a heavy sigh escaped the man's lips Helen turned her eyes towards him, alarmed._

_"Giles!" She cried out and ran towards him._

_He didn't seem to hear her, he was only barely conscious, his chin resting on his chest. From the tunnel Angel's footsteps sounded louder and louder. She desperately looked around her, not knowing what to do. There was another door at the opposite wall._

_"Hee-leeen," Angel was shouting, "don't go too far or you'll get lost," he laughed._

_She got up and ran towards the other door, and before opening it she turned around as she could hear Angel being very close. Not letting her eyes go off the tunnel-exit she opened the other door and when she finally turned her head to see where this door led to, her lips let out a gasp of shock. _

_"Hello, poppet," Rodolphus greeted her gleefully, standing in front of her, then began walking towards her, forcing her to step back into the room where Giles was._

_She was receding towards the dark corner of the room. Though she was literally filled with panic and terror, she was instinctively determined to protect Giles. To her utter horror only now she noticed that there was another person in the very same corner, standing in its darkest shadow. The person walked around Giles' chair and knelt down at his side. The face was distorted, and first Helen thought it was an unknown vampire. She stared at it puzzled, completely unable to do anything. When it bent down slightly and sank its teeth into Giles' neck, a strip of light enlightened its face and Helen recognized her at once. _

_"No," she whispered for the second time, but Bellatrix the Vampire ignored her and bit even deeper into Giles' neck. Helen could see blood flowing from underneath Bellatrix' teeth, disappearing in the collar of Giles' shirt, then appearing again on his chest as it soaked the thin fabric and red stains were beginning to form on it._

_"I told you I would come for you," Rodolphus said, his voice sounded weird, it wasn't full of hatred as she would have expected it to be. It was calm, almost... friendly, inviting, and that was scaring her even more._

_Angel's steps sounded now only a few yards away and Helen's eyes kept switching frantically between the tunnel-door and Rodolphus. She didn't know how, suddenly she held her wand in her right hand and at that moment Angel stepped in. _

_"_Excuto_," she said and waved her wand at Angel, but he only laughed at the blue sparks that emerged from it._

_Frustrated she turned at Rodolphus, who was now pointing his wand at her with a wide grin on his face, and said in an even lower, more anxious voice that sounded more like a whine: "_Protego_."_

_Rodolphus and Angel exchanged cheerful and amused looks._

_The wizard then pointed his wand at the blue harmless flash of light that had emerged from Helen's wand and suddenly the blue sparks formed themselves into some sort of a firework and were rising high above Helen's head, while she was watching them with open mouth. Then Rodolphus murmured, still pointing his wand at the blue sparkling cloud: "_Demitto_," and split of a second later Helen felt dozens of tiny sharp glass splitters hit her face, causing little painful scratches all over it._

_"It's the other way round," Angel said, rebuking her. Rodolphus motioned with his head towards Bellatrix, as if she was explanation enough for Angel's words. _

_Helen turned around to see Bellatrix the Vampire still sunk into Giles' neck. He looked several shades paler than just a minute ago, as if she had already drunk all of his blood. Helen wanted to shout, for she couldn't move, her feet seemed to have been forged into the wooden floor. She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged from it, only soundless and the more despairing "No... No..."_

Giles re-entered his office and smiled as he noticed that Helen had sunk her head on her shoulder, her eyes were closed – she must have fallen asleep during his short absence. No wonder, with the jet-leg and the Angel-experience she must have been exhausted. He came closer, pondering over whether he should wake her or leave her rest for just a little bit more, when he saw her furrowing her brows. She must have been dreaming. She opened her mouth slightly and her head jerked a little. Giles noticed drops of sweat on her forehead now. Then she moaned, several times. He frowned and bent down over her, then placed his hand gently on hers to wake her up as softly as possible from what clearly was not a pleasant dream. He flinched immediately as he touched her – her hand was sweaty and ice-cold.

Helen suddenly opened her eyes, her heart was throbbing in her chest loudly and at a high speed. For a brief moment she just looked Giles in the eyes, then hesitantly, almost anxiously threw stolen glances at their surroundings to make sure that she was awake and those things from a few moment earlier were nothing but a nightmare.

"Bad dream?" He asked softly.

She looked at him intently. The unreleased scream from the dream was still pressing on her tongue. She swallowed, then managed a weak smile. "Nothing-eh... horrible," she replied at last, then straightened herself up in the armchair as her legs had gone numb during the short sleep.

Giles smiled back at her and observed her face for a little longer, sensing that something had disquieted her.

"Are the others gone?" She asked to change the subject.

"Yes, I told them to go," he said, "we haven't found much, but-uh...," he stood up and walked slowly across the room, "... I'm not even sure what we're looking for, or what I'm hoping to find," he sighed and sounded tired and exhausted himself.

"What have you been researching? Something on Angel?"

"Yes," he raised his head again, "oh, right, I didn't tell you yet."

"Tell me what?"

"I was talking to your friend, Charles Weasley," he began and Helen flustered immediately. _Giles? Talking to Charlie? O-oo... Looks like the nightmare isn't over, _her inner voice said ironically.

"Really?" She asked trying to cover the trepidation in her voice. _Charlie wouldn't tell him about that... mishap... surely... we had agreed not to talk of it anymore..._

"Yes, he was here, two days ago. He had thought you would already be back from London – he hadn't attended the trial as I understand," he continued, while rummaging among the notes on his desk. "And he told me some very interesting things."

Helen panicked now. "What things?" She asked in a higher voice than she intended, but Giles didn't notice.

"Not too much, but-uh... it is a start," he said, when he turned back at her and looked her in the eyes. From the look Helen realized that her fears were unfounded and what he was about to say had nothing to do with hers and Charlie's short common past. "He said that he had been asking around a bit among his local acquaintances and though they didn't seem to know a whole lot, the common denominator seemed to be the name _Calderash_, a clan of Romani, living in the northern parts of Romania, somewhere between the towns of-uh...," he paused to take a look on a piece of paper lying on his desk, "Bistriţa and-uh... Borşa."

Helen was listening carefully.

"However, it looks like they're not there anymore."

"What happened?"

"Well, I've asked Mr. Weasley to find out, but-uh... my guess would be that they most probably had left already before or during the war."

"Oh, right," Helen sighed resigned, "you're probably right, those weren't particularly good times for the Romani in Europe," she said.

"Still," he said like he wasn't going to give up hope that they might discover something useful in the end, "Mr. Weasley promised to help us and ask around some more. Maybe we will find out where they wandered and how we can find or contact them now, and from there we would only be a short step away from understanding the curse and-," he suddenly stopped, but Helen was sure it wasn't the end of his thought.

"You think that we should attempt to curse him again?" She asked quietly.

Giles shrugged and didn't answer immediately. He was leaning with his back onto his desk, his hands in his pockets, a clear sign that he didn't know what to do, what the right thing would be. "I don't know."

Then he pushed himself off his desk, grabbing his jacket. "But there is no point in speculating over it until we know more about the curse."

During the drive to Giles' apartment Helen was silent. The bits of the previous dream kept popping into her mind and Giles saw her closing her eyes painfully a couple of times

"Are you sure you're alright?" He asked her when they walked into his flat and he closed the door behind them.

"I'm fine!" She snapped. "I wish people would stop treating me like I'm an invalid!"

Giles raised his brows, surprised at hearing her voice sounding this irascible and huffy, he had never before seen her so riled.

"I'm sorry," she said pleading almost immediately, and threw her arms around her in a helpless and tired gesture, "It's just-," then shook her head, "forget it." She walked over to the sofa and threw herself on it.

For a short moment Giles did nothing and watched her. She rested her head on the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, his face was only inches from hers. He was glaring at her with this half strict, half indulgent look, the corners of his mouth were twitched into a barely perceptible smile. "You're telling me, right now," he said with this incredible, unearthly calmness in his voice that Helen suspected was infectious. _How is he doing this?_ She wondered. It wasn't the first time when after hearing his voice she felt that all her anxieties had been if not entirely ridiculous, then certainly at least exaggerated and trivial.

"Do I have to?" She tried it with a last piece of a not very convincing resistance.

Giles smirked, clearly he had some ace up his sleeve. "Well, you don't," he said, then paused. "I expect that you must be hungry..."

She nodded, erroneously assuming that he had changed the topic of their conversation at last. "Oh, yes, I'm utterly starved! The lunch on the flight was rather disappointing," she said, then noticed his triumphant look and looked at him suspiciously.

"Well. It's like this: no tell – no dinner," he said simply.

She looked at him with big eyes, opened her mouth, pretending to be shocked and appalled, but couldn't help it and laughed in the end. "Alright, fine, you win."

Giles sat down on the sofa right next to her and she told him about Rodolphus' last threatening words after the trial. When she finished, she looked up at him and smiled unconvincingly. "That's all."

"No, it's not," he said slowly, glaring at her intently.

She squirmed. She did not intend to tell him about the silly dreams. "Nothing, really. Look, I'm sorry I was so cranky, the past few days were so tedious, and I haven't slept much, bad dreams... and lots of thoughts... and...," then she turned to him, "I'm glad to be back," she said in a whisper and kissed him to stop him from quizzing her about it.

Giles was preparing dinner and Helen was sitting on a stool at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, fascinated she was observing his cooking artistry.

"On the plus side – thanks to Angel and my own foolishness of inviting him in I have now the excuse to stay here and profit from your cooking indefinitely, I guess," she said brightly.

"Hm, I must disappoint you there," Giles replied, searching for some spices for the meal he was preparing in the pan. "When it comes to Angel you're not safe here either, I had invited him in at Christmas when I thought he could tell me more-" He turned around at her. "Hang on. You said before that you had shook him off with some spell earlier," he said bewildered.

"Yes," she said frowning herself.

"B-but how is that possible? We thought you couldn't harm him!"

Helen shook her head slowly, she had been just as stumped before as Giles was now, but then with the dream and everything she forgot all about it.

"Could it be that-uh... somehow... your powers are back?"

"No, no, it couldn't... though I managed to do it without the wand, you saw the state I was in afterwards, that would not be the case if I was in full possession of my former powers, I would show no effects of any spells... I don't understand it myself...," she muttered and tried to recall the scene that had happened at her house couple of hours ago. "I-eh... the stunning spell didn't work, that I remember...," she was reviewing her actions methodically, "i-it was the deterring charm that worked! Yes, that and the averting spell I used first to keep him off me." She looked somewhat nonplussed by this realization. "But why? How?"

"And those two spell, were the effects of them what you would expect normally?" Giles asked.

She shrugged. "Yes, pretty much."

"Hm," Giles murmured, before remembering Angel's cryptic words at Christmas, "_it's the other way round_," he said thoughtfully, more to himself.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I have a question :) Does anyone know by any chance, what was the painting in the Becoming 2 episode – in the manor house where Spike, Angel, Drusilla and Acathla were staying? I haven't watched it recently, but I remember that in the scene where Angel is talking to Giles while Giles is tied up in the chair there was a shot or a glimpse of a painting on the wall, looked kind of Japanese or Chinese (but I might be totally wrong there) if I remember right – there's a cherry tree on it, a tiny person in what looks like a snowy landscape – I can't find any reference to it and I wondered if it might be "real", having a name, or just a décor...<em>

_Anyways, thanks again for still reading, hope you're not bored yet, and as always – review, comment, nag, if you have a spare minute :)_


	35. Chapter 35: Of dreams and theories

Chapter 35

Of dreams and theories

_AN: Sorry for the long break, I had to rewrite it couple of times, and am still not happy with it, particularly I have the feeling that Giles is slipping out of character a bit. I'm afraid it might take a bit longer from now on to update (too much work :() Still, I hope you'll enjoy._

* * *

><p>"Hm," Giles murmured, before remembering Angel's cryptic words at Christmas, "<em>it's the other way round<em>," he said thoughtfully, more to himself.

Helen stared at him after he had said those words. It felt too creepy, the scene from her previous dream was passing once more in front of her.

Giles kept contemplating aloud. "Well, do the spells that worked have something in common, I wonder? Or those that don't work?"

Then the image of Bellatrix the Vampire popped into her mind and suddenly Helen had the pressing feeling that she's been missing something the whole time, but she couldn't think what it was.

"Helen?" Giles asked again as she didn't seem to have heard him.

She raised her eyes at him, her look was blank.

"Can you think of something that those spells have in common?" He asked again and set a full plate with dinner in front of her. "I mean – I have no idea how your magic works, but... perhaps those were some special sort of spells or-"

She looked at him stumped now, just before she exclaimed loudly: "Protection spells!"

There was question in Giles' eyes. She was looking right at him, but he had the impression that she wasn't really seeing him, she looked like she was thinking hard and occasionally her head gave a short nod and a quick smile would fly over her face.

"You mean – the spells that worked, that knocked Angel off, were-", he spoke.

"Defensive magic," Helen said quickly, "those were protective spells, used for self-defense... or-or defense in general."

"But," Giles paused, remembering something, "but your protection spells didn't work against Lestrange and-". Suddenly Giles' face changed and Helen knew they were thinking the same thing. "Do you think that's what it meant?"

Helen didn't answer immediately. She tried to recall every spell she had ever cast since her arrival here. Though she could hardly remember them all, still, it seemed to fit. And then the dream too. "It looks like it," she spoke slowly at last, "all the offensive magic, attacking spells... they won't do with vampires, or demons, or-or for some reason hyena-possessed teenagers, whereas protective spells seem to be of no use against other wizards."

"Yet it does work _the other way round_," Giles finished frowning. "It is..."

"... odd," she said.

"Remarkable," Giles added at the same time.

"And I can't get rid of the feeling that it's not in a good way," Helen murmured. "Most of all – why? And how is that possible?"

* * *

><p>On the next day just as Giles was checking some books, new arrivals mostly, behind the counter in the library, Buffy walked in in a somewhat aggressive way, visibly agitated about something.<p>

"He was in my room," she said quietly, but with clear stress and a trace of wrath in her voice.

"Who?" Giles asked confused.

"Angel. He was in my room last night."

While Giles was absorbing this news and Cordelia kept lamenting about how she was in danger now every time she'd sit in her car, since Angel could enter it too, Buffy urged: "Giles, there hast to be some sort of a spell to reverse the invitation, right? Like a barrier, a-a no shoes, no pulse – no service kind of thing?"

They were interrupted by the seldom arrival of students, a boy and a girl, who had come to borrow some books on Stalin, and had to leave the library to continue the discussion outside. Though Giles pointed out, that with this new sort of harassment Angel was pursuing a classical battle strategy by trying to provoke Buffy, to irritate her until she'd do a mistake on her own, they all knew only too well that it was too risky to rely upon that and do nothing, especially when – given Angel's permanent access to their house – Buffy's mother was now in danger as well and without even knowing it.

"Buffy, I-I understand your concern, but it's imperative, that you keep a level head through all this," he insisted.

"That's easy for you to say, you don't have Angel lurking around in your bedroom at night," she whinged.

"Look, I know how hard this is for you... All right, I don't. But you mustn't let Angel get to you no matter how provocative his behaviour may become," he replied urgently. "A-and I told you I-uh... I will find a-...," suddenly he straightened up, a thought occurred to him, before he finished in a wondering voice: "... spell."

"Yes, but what about _until_ you find a spell?" Buffy asked naggingly, but Giles wasn't listening anymore, his look was unfocused.

Then he turned at the three of them: "You go to class now, I'll see you later," and off he went in direction of Helen's classroom, leaving them watching his back perplexed.

As he was approaching the classroom, he could hear Helen speaking in a small and rather distressed voice: "I-I've told you I-I-I have not yet come t-to a final decision... I-I don't want to rush into anything..." Giles furrowed his brows, then to his very dislike he heard Snyder reply.

"And why not – if I may ask?" The principal asked, his voice unusually dark and even for his standards quite aggressive.

In the moment as Giles was about to enter the classroom, Snyder had pinned Helen against the blackboard, pressing his body onto hers, he was just a few inches taller than her, so that his lips were almost touching her cheeks, when he said threatening: "Don't you toy with my emotions!"

Helen squirmed as she was trying to put at least some minimum distance between them, but it was impossible, despite his short stature the principal seemed to be quite strong. She was worrying what he might do, for it was known that people under love-spells could be very unpredictable, rather rash and hotheaded in their doings, and also far from reasonable. Yet when she sensed him pressing himself even more against her, everything inside her mounted up for resistance, she felt her stomach tighten. His hungry lips just touched her neck, when she cried out in outrage, "Stop it!", and finally managed to push him off just enough to slap his face.

For a moment he seemed shocked, then fury appeared on his face and something else too, that made Helen regret that she had hit him and fear what he was going to do. He squeezed her shoulders so that it hurt and she gasped a little in pain, when suddenly Snyder was pulled away from her with force and she only now noticed Giles standing in the room. The principal stared at him in disbelief, but before he could react, Giles had hit him hard in his face and he fell on the floor, unconscious.

Helen looked down at him, then raised her wide opened eyes at Giles. "Thank you," she whispered, still a little discomposed and breathless.

Giles was massaging his left hand, clearly the punch wasn't painless for him either, and it had looked like he had put his whole force into it, yet by the sight of the knocked-off principal he appeared strangely satisfied.

Then he turned at her. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes, but-eh... you shouldn't have done that," she said anxiously watching Snyder, he was already furrowing his brows, he would come around soon. "When he wakes up, we'll both be in trouble now."

"Then I'll hit him as many times as it takes," Giles said in a strange, dark voice, that reminded her of the Halloween night and the exchange between him and Ethan in Ethan's costume shop.

"It's not his fault," she replied reproachfully, "he's under a love-spell, he can't really be held responsible for his actions right now."

Giles didn't seem convinced, or rather he didn't want to hear any excuses on account of the principal. It felt good having finally punched him in the face – he had wanted to do it since a long time.

A loud groan came from Snyder as his hands covered his face, his nose was bleeding and was probably broken. He sat up, and Giles took a step back, ready to hit him again.

Snyder finally looked up, first at Helen, then at Giles and then his expression changed as if he had just realized something. "You...," he pointed his index finger at Giles, then back at Helen, and got up, "... you are cheating on me... with this-this... tweedy, stuffy, snobbish...," he was foaming, but obviously couldn't find a nasty enough word, so he pressed his lips together, thinking, "... librarian..." He was slowly approaching her again, while she was stepping back, with one eye keeping at Giles.

"Get away from her," Giles said again in this disquieting, strange voice.

Snyder's head snapped towards him and Helen used his momentary distraction to pull her wand out of the pocket of her skirt.

"She's mine!" Snyder shouted. "We were planning to leave together, to escape just the two of us, then you come here, you... you're so fired," he said spitefully and grinned nastily.

Before Helen could think of a spell, Giles' hands already jumped up and with the one he grasped the principal on his shoulder and with the other he hit him hard in his stomach. He had lost his temper again, he loathed the little man only too much.

"Orgh," Snyder groaned loudly.

"Giles!" Helen cried in shock, and when Snyder was about to strike back, she pointed her wand at the two of them: "_Separo!_" and with a light flash they both were pulled off each other into opposite directions, stumbling.

Snyder stared at her horrified. "What is this?"

She ignored him and turned to Giles, speaking in a desperate voice. "We need to call Hermione, or someone, they must obliviate him, I can't do it. And there's no way to tell what he might do... Or you for that matter," she added glaring at Giles.

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

"What are you two plotting? What are you talking about?" Snyder asked suspiciously.

Helen turned at him, gave him an apologetic, almost tormented look, then whispered: "I'm sorry," and pointed her wand at him, murmuring "_Stupefy!_"

Snyder fell again, blacked out.

"Can you watch him until I get back? I'll phone Hermione quickly from the library. I have a free period now, Mr. Pescoe is on some field trip with the seniors, so there should be no one coming in here...," she looked down at Snyder, "... but just in case...," once more she waved her wand at the motionless body, "_invisibilem,_" and it disappeared from the view in an instance.

"Alright," he said quietly.

In the door Helen turned around at him. "And don't beat him anymore," she said, but Giles couldn't really detect from her voice whether she was angry or just a tiny bit amused.

She returned a few minutes later and explained, that Hermione was on her way here and should be with them within half an hour. In the meantime Giles told her about Angel's nightly visit in Buffy's room.

"We need to find a way to keep him out," she replied thoughtfully, "unless we all want to find ourselves living at Xander's."

For a short moment Giles looked horrified at the prospect, but then he remembered why he actually had come to see her. "Yes, I had a thought," he began and sounded more curious this time. Once again he was leaning onto her desk while she was sitting in her chair, they seemed to have forgotten all about Snyder. "Given what we talked about yesterday, you said that it was protective spells that had worked on Angel, but not on that Lestrange... I was wondering – what if the protection spells that you had used before to secure the school and my apartment, which did not keep Lestrange away – shouldn't they be effective against vampires –according to our theory?"

Helen looked at him, intrigued. She was slowly nodding in contemplation. "Well, in theory, yes... But I'm not sure theory is good enough in our case," she said after a while.

"Still, I say we should try it. At least until we find something else," he said.

"It's just... there's no way to know whether it works or not, is there?" She said doubtfully, just as Hermione knocked on the door and entered.

"Hi," she greeted them, and came directly to the point, "where is he?"

"_Finite_," Helen waved at some invisible point on the floor at the back of the classroom and suddenly Snyder's body appeared again.

"Right. What do you want me to do?"

Helen again explained to her shortly what had happened between him and Giles and that it would be better if the principal would not remember any of it. "Also, you must break the love spell, it's getting rather inconvenient," she added sarcastically. "Can you do that? An obliviation of that sort? Do you dare or should we better-"

"I can do the memory charm," Hermione said confidently. "But I'm not sure about the love spell. It was George who had cast it, and if I recall it correctly, he should also be the one to end it. Besides, you don't seem to know which love spell he had used, and there are several sorts, all differ in the way of breaking them, some even wear off on their own, others however can only be stopped by specific incantations, and there is also one, against which a complicated potion has to be drunk."

Helen raised her brows. "You seem to know a great deal about these things," she said suspiciously, suppressing a smile.

Hermione turned pink. "I just had been-eh... curious one time... besides, it's always good to know how to defend yourself against stuff like that," she added quickly.

"Well, anyway, I can't take this anymore, we have to end it _somehow_," Helen insisted.

"You will have to call George. I wouldn't want to risk any damage... The obliviation might weaken the love spell for a while, we can make him forget all that he had done under the spell so far, but he'll probably soon resume his efforts," Hermione said dryly.

After those words Giles shot a sinister glance at Snyder

Helen sighed. "Alright. Then do what you can and-"

"-and when I return to London, I'll tell George immediately to come here."

"Thanks."

Then Hermione took out her wand, took a deep breath, paused for a moment and stared at Snyder in full concentration, and finally pronounced the spell: "_Obliviate!_" A flash of yellow light hit his chest and Hermione seemed satisfied. "Good. It looks that it worked." She turned at Helen. "You probably shouldn't be around when he wakes up... In fact try to keep out of his way until George finishes it."

"Ok," Helen murmured, "let's meet in the library then."

Hermione nodded and watched her and Giles leave, then pointed her wand at the unconscious principal and said, rather hesitantly: "_Expergiscaris._"

Snyder squirmed, then moaned loudly, touching his hurt stomach. He raised his head, looking around him suspiciously. He got up and noticed Hermione. "What are you looking at?" He snapped at her.

She shook her head vehemently, but he just marched past her, about to leave too, yet in the door he stopped and turned around at her. "I'm still the principal here, right?" He asked her frowning.

Hermione smiled a little relieved and nodded, the memory charm clearly worked, hopefully without any side-effects.

"Now, where was I going?" Snyder spoke under his nose, when he stepped out of the classroom at last. "Right, Billy Crandal and the snack machine... pathetic little no-life vegan..." And off he was.

When Hermione came to the library and declared that all was fine with Snyder, Giles seemed impressed. He smirked. "Well, maybe we should do this more often then," he said.

"Do what?" Hermione asked.

Giles cleared his throat. "Uh-you know... beat him up, then-uh... _clean_ his head..."

Helen pretended to be shocked, but smiled widely in the end, shaking her head in a not very convincing disapproval.

Hermione wasn't sure whether Giles was serious, but something about him prevented her from saying anything against it.

"Thank you, Hermione," Helen said to her and the young witch merely gave a short nod, then looked at her watch.

"Merlin, I must go, I'm supposed to have dinner with my parents... But I will call on George later, bye for now," and with a turn on her spot she was gone, before Giles or Helen could say good bye.

"Do you think that I am evil, because it gave me such a pleasure to hit him after all this time?" Giles asked when they were left alone and he stepped closer to her.

She smiled at him. He looked like a boy, feeling just a little bit guilty about something, that he rather wanted to be proud of. But the truth was that he also felt a little ashamed and worried that she had seen him losing his control, a small part of the former Ripper resurfacing for a moment, when he battered Snyder. He feared that she might have been scared, or worse – appalled by his conduct.

"No, I don't think you're a bad person because of that," she said calmly, then continued in a flirty undertone. "Or... _if_ you are," she paused and with her hand caught his tie to pull him gently even closer to her, "then evil never looked so sexy," she whispered and he already leant down to kiss her.

* * *

><p>Later that day Helen decided to cast the new protection spells on Buffy's, Willow's and Giles' houses, even though she wasn't positive whether they were of any use, as – this being Sunnydale – she couldn't really be sure of any of her magic.<p>

Yet it was to be tested soon enough, when a couple of days later Angel, who was pursuing his latest hobby of harassing Buffy and her friends, showed up at Buffy's house. He briefly talked to Joyce and revealed to her that he and Buffy had slept together. But when Joyce unlocked the door and Angel was about to follow her inside, to his surprise and anger – and to Buffy's satisfaction – he couldn't pass the threshold.

* * *

><p>Days were passing, George had lifted the love-spell over Snyder at last and the principal had resumed his former grumpy, annoying, but – for everyone involved – all the more comfortable nature; Angel kept pestering them, but at least they knew they were once again safe in their houses – and cars. There was still no news from Charlie about the Claderash-clan, only a short message, passed to them by George and saying, that Charlie was on it and would soon show up to refer what he found out. Helen's nightmares continued, but they were too confusing. Sometimes they figured Rodolphus or Angel, sometimes Bellatrix, or even Secundus Travers would appear, occasionally turning into vampires, but often enough there were entire strangers in her dreams, faces she had never seen. Sometimes she or Giles were being chased, or he was being held captive somewhere, and tortured, or killed in the end by a single swing of somebody's wand. And there were also the weird apocalyptic dreams, with scenes she couldn't account for at all. There were days when she was fearing the evening and the night and the time when they would go to bed and she would close her eyes and have to witness it all over again. She was far from superstitious and she did not believe in dreams foreboding the future. She thought that they were rather the mirror of things that had already happened and in one way or another kept occupying one's mind. But there were parts in her dreams that she could not trace back to any actual events, which together with the high frequency of these nightmares was beginning to unsettle her and affect her composure during the day. Also she had troubles falling asleep at all sometimes, and would toss in the bed for hours before the uneasy sleep took over at last. All in all because of all that she was rarely rested in the mornings.<p>

Finally on one Sunday morning, when she had been unusually quiet during breakfast again, Giles made her talk at last. Although she did not want to tell him about it at first because these dreams seemed so silly and worrying about them even more so – plus she still wasn't entirely used to the fact nor could she really believe it that she could tell him anything, it seemed too nice to be true, that there was someone who would listen, who might understand or at least care without being all judgmental regardless whether he could comprehend it or not – on that morning under the candid look of his eyes she gave in once more as she had done couple of times in the past months, and told him everything about the weird, disturbing dreams.

"You think they might be... of the predictive sort?" He asked softly in the end. He had listened carefully. From his experience with Buffy's dreams he knew better than to dismiss such nightmares immediately as mere meaningless projections of one's subconscious.

Helen shook her head decisively. "No, I don't think so, I don't really believe in that sort."

"Well, Buffy's dreams-" He wanted to object.

"I know. But I'm not Buffy," she said, again a little testy. "I'm sorry," she hurried to say. "I don't think they mean anything, you see, they're just... rubbish really."

"Then why would they upset you so much?" He asked and looked at her meaningfully.

She managed a smile. "They're quite exhausting, you know," she said sounding less serious, "_you_ try dreaming every night of endless ends of the world and quite graphic torture and people getting stabbed, hanged or quartered, and then being all sunshine in the morning."

Giles winced at the last picture. "Have you had such dreams before?"

Helen thought for a moment. "Yes, couple of times, years ago, but not as frequent as this. They really didn't have any... foretelling qualities."

"Hm," was all Giles would reply for now.

"Perhaps we can try something new tonight before going to sleep," he said after a short pause.

She looked at him in surprise, then smiled coquettishly. "Why Rupert... I-eh..."

He furrowed his brows at her, then realized that she must have misunderstood him. "That's not what I was...," he blushed and cleared his throat, "I was talking about your dreams."

"Oh," Helen squirmed embarrassed.

"Although, on the other hand," he said teasingly and sat down next do her on the sofa, turning his face to her and pleased he observed, that her cheeks were glowing as well and she held her breath for a moment when he leant closer, "that might work too."

A knock on the door interrupted them.

"Who can it be?" Giles wondered frowning and got up.

"I think we can rule out George, as he wouldn't bother with knocking," she murmured, a little displeased at the mistimed interruption.

Giles opened the door and the figure of red-headed Charlie Weasley came to their sight. Helen stiffened a little.

"Hello," Charlie greeted them smiling tensely and looking from the one to the other.

"Oh, Mr. Weasley," Giles replied and motioned him to enter.

"Thank you," Charlie said and walked in hesitantly. Helen noticed a fresh burnt scar on his forearm, just beneath his rolled-up sleeve.

Charlie saw her look and to her surprise he smiled rather contentedly. "We found the female," he said and grinned happily.

Both Giles and Helen looked perplexed at first, then Helen seemed to have remembered. "Ah, you mean the dragon."

"Yes. The Transylvanian Fireclaw," Charlie said proudly. "Well, the name's a bit lame, when you ask me, but... my _transylvanian gleameye_ was outvoted, so... still, she's pretty sight..."

He noticed the awkward expression on Giles' face and Helen's bemused look and thought that perhaps as they had not seen the dragon they might not understand and share his enthusiasm. "I'll bring you some pictures next time," he said. "Anyway, I came because I have found, crabwise and after a great deal of asking, someone who might be of some help to you in the Angel-matter."

"Oh?" Giles straightened up in full attention.

"It's an old lady, not nearly as old as the event in question and I haven't met with her, but I've been told that she is one of the Calderash who had returned some years ago to the old homeland of her ancestors. I'm afraid it's the best I could do."

"Right," Helen seemed a little disappointed, though on the other hand she had feared as much. "But where had they gone? Where did she return from, do you know that?"

"Yes, they had left during the war, after their village was burnt down and some of them were killed or sent to concentration camps and those who managed to escape or had the foresight to leave earlier went to America. And before you ask I don't know where they settled down as I didn't speak with the woman, and the person who told me about her, didn't know a lot more."

"It might be worth talking to her," Giles said slowly.

"That's what I thought," Charlie nodded in agreement. "But you should know that she's not very chummy with wizards – bad associations or something, I've been told. That's why I decided against seeing her myself. Therefore perhaps you should go, Mr. Giles."

"Me?" Giles asked, clearly not enthused by the idea. "I cannot leave here for so long, not with everything that's going on, especially leaving Buffy now... It would take... how long, several days, such a trip. I assume she doesn't live in a city, probably in some village..."

"She lives secluded, in a cottage, a few miles away from a village called Măgura Ilvei."

Giles shook his head, he couldn't possibly undertake such a journey now.

"Why do say it would take so long?" Charlie frowned.

"Because, unlike you, Giles cannot apparate, Charlie," Helen said, reminding the wizard politely of what she thought was obvious, but she knew that wizards sometimes tended to forget these things, even if they were now and then associating with non-wizarding people.

"Oh," Charlie raised his brows, realizing she was right. But then he shrugged: "I think we could work around it," he said casually.

Giles looked at him bewildered. "H-how-uh... exactly?"

Charlie paused for a moment, thinking over the possibilities. "Well, I'd say side-along apparition might be a bit risky..."

"That's too far, Charlie, you might end up collecting Rupert's limbs all over the continent if he got splinched," Helen argued.

"Hm, alright," Charlie said casually, not noticing Giles' alarmed expression. "Then we could arrange a chain of portkeys, starting here and ending near Măgura, with three or four inter-halts...," he nodded to himself, obviously liking the idea, "I wouldn't use the one to the Ministry, and I doubt Kingsley would allow it, but we would create new ones... this could work... You have a strong stomach, Mr. Giles?" Charlie turned at him.

Giles opened his mouth, but didn't really know what to reply. He wasn't really sure he trusted all that magic. He had seen a lot of it in the last year, and clearly not everything about it was to be liked.

"Yes," Helen said thoughtfully, looking through Giles, "it could work... if it's done properly."

"Don't worry, I know just the girl to pull it off," Charlie grinned.

Giles felt even more disturbed now. Charlie made it sound like it was some very daring, very cool adventure. _And what was it about splinching they had mentioned before?_

"I can organize the necessary registrations with the Ministry and the Romanian Wizarding office, say... in about two or three days it could be set," Charlie said in a businesslike voice. "What do you say, Mr. Giles?"

"Hm, I-I am not-uh... sure," he turned at Helen rather helplessly. She gave him a reassuring look.

"You can go with him," Charlie suggested turning at Helen. "Provided you stay away from the woman's house and wait somewhere aside..." Suddenly Charlie's face brightened up: "And when you're there you must come visit us and our look-out near Sovata, and I'll show you our little fiery devil and his sweetheart... did I mention that the female is larger?... anyway, if you're lucky, we'll see them both...," he spoke in excitement.

Giles smiled half-heartedly. They could hardly afford making such detour and wasting more time away from Sunnydale than absolutely necessary. On second thoughts – that _was_ a fairly tempting prospect, to see a real dragon...

Helen wanted to politely and regrettably refuse the offer, when Giles spoke first: "Alright," he said firmly to her astonishment, "let's-uh... let's do it. You will come with me, won't you?" He turned at her.

"I will," she answered, still surprised.

"That's settled then," Charlie rubbed his hands together, glad about the satisfactory development, then bowed slightly and bid them good day before leaving. He would be in touch soon.

Later that night Giles and Helen were lying in bed in each other's arms, pleasantly exhausted and with blissful gazes on her faces after the pleasurable fulfillment of the just past moments.

"What was it that you wanted to try before?" She asked dozily after a long while.

"Hm?" He asked. He was deepened in thoughts, absentmindedly stroking her arm.

"Earlier, something against my dreams?" She reminded him.

"Oh, right," he remembered and sat up. "Just a moment," he said, before getting swiftly out of the bed. She heard him descending the stairs and rummaging in his bookshelves. "There it is," he said and a few seconds later he was already slipping back under the covers with a book in his hands.

Helen looked at him very much puzzled and asked curiously. "What's this?"

"I heard somewhere that it often helps when you fall asleep listening to something. It helps taking your mind off other things that might be engaging it... Not music though," he said and held the cover of an old book in front of her face. It said Francis Durbridge's _Send for Paul Temple_. "Detective stories, as I recall, are supposed to be most suitable. Therefore, I thought – if you like – I'd read something for you, until you fall asleep," he said, then looked at her sheepishly.

Helen couldn't believe how lucky she got, she merely managed a moony nod in all her felicity.

"Good... Though I must warn you the story is quite lame..."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thanks for reading. Hopefully you'll forgive all the fluff. And I hope it's not too phony, the wand-magic-story. Giles and Helen still need to work it out obviously, but they're at least one step closer now. I hope you don't mind my Paul Temple reference, but I just got the audio-books couple of weeks ago and I simply had to put this in as Anthony Head is narrating them and there's hardly a better way to go to sleep than with his voice sounding in one's ears :)) man, I envy Helen for having the live-performance now :)<em>


	36. Chapter 36: A Field Trip

Chapter 36

A field trip

_AN: Thank you for the last review. I gave that travelling a thought – and mixed a bit :), thanks for the idea!_

* * *

><p>At least in terms of falling asleep, the reading seemed to help. It wasn't twenty minutes later when Giles noticed Helen's chest raising and falling slower than before. He read a few more pages aloud, more to himself, then laid the book aside and turned off the light.<p>

However the sleep she had fallen into was anything but calm. Soon she found herself again in one of her previous nightmares.

_The scenery slightly changed, but again there was a dark room with the same peculiar painting on a wall, a chair, Giles tied on it, and Bellatrix with a distorted vampire face. They were fighting, very much in the manner of their last fight during the Battle of Hogwarts, but there was one major difference: no spell that Helen would cast worked. Bellatrix was laughing like a maniac when Helen whispered "_Avada Kedavra_" and her wand gave off a string of the familiar blue sparkles. Bellatrix then turned at Giles and yelled "_Crucio!_" Helen's heart sank as she saw him wince in pain. "_Protego!_" She said in a small whimper, but nothing happened except that Bellatrix was laughing even louder now. "_Averto!_" Nothing. "_Defringo!... Defendo!_" She sank on her knees in desperation, tears were filling her eyes, she couldn't bear to look at him being tortured like this, and her not being able to do anything about it. _

_Then Bellatrix finally broke the spell and turned back to face her again. Helen looked at her, with all the hatred and defiance mirrored in her eyes – she barely ever regarded someone this clearly, with absolutely no benefit of doubts – Bellatrix _was_ pure evil. "_Sectumsempra!_" She said through pressed teeth. But of course – it didn't work. _

_The dark haired witch smirked smugly, her pointy oversized teeth appeared in one corner of her mouth, and raised her wand. "Now it is your turn... _Crucio!_"_

_Even though Helen was expecting this, she still gasped as the sharp pain hit her in the chest. She fell on her back, thick needles penetrating her skin on several spots... _

_Someone was touching her shoulder, trying to shake her gently, and a voice reached her that she was only too happy to hear sounding calm and sound._

"Helen, wake up," Giles repeated a little louder than before and suddenly her eyes shot open. Her breath was still agitated and she looked alarmed, but when their eyes met, she seemed to ease a little.

"What happened?" He asked. At first she shook her head like she didn't want to tell and ran her hands through her hair exhaustedly. It was wet and sweaty.

She sighed and sat up. "I think I need something to drink," she said and climbed out of bed. Giles did the same. "Are you sure you won't rather go back to sleep?" She turned at him.

"No, I was dreaming nonsense too," he murmured as they were descending the stairs, "Snyder had reduced my salary to one pound a year, then forced me to appear on the school talent show – which he was running – in a sketch called _The Tweedy Librarian_... so I could use a drink too."

She laughed. "Well, now that puts my nightmares quite into a perspective," she said with a lightness that could have convinced or deceive someone else, but not Giles anymore. "By the way, I was thinking more of a glass of milk for myself," she added amused, as Giles came to a halt at the small bar-table and took a bottle of whiskey in his hand along with two glasses.

"Oh," he said, turning red and feeling embarrassed.

"But then again my dream didn't star Snyder, so...," she hurried to say so that he wouldn't feel awkward, or like an alcoholic. "I think a Snyder-dream definitely falls into the _can-be-washed-away-by-a-glass-of-whiskey_ category."

"Right," he said and filled his glass and they moved to the kitchen.

Helen gave him a short version of what happened in her dream. Once again Giles was musing whether it could be in any way a presage.

"I killed Bellatrix in the Battle, she died in front of me, she wasn't a vampire, she was just... dead," Helen said.

"Then maybe that's not the message," he said thoughtfully.

"I'm not sure there is _any_ message in those dreams," she replied. Then the image of him, tied and tortured by Bellatrix made her shiver. _I do hope so_.

"The thing with the magic is... too confusing though... You couldn't harm her, even though she was a wi-" Suddenly he stopped and laid his glass on the counter rather loudly.

Helen looked at him curiously. "Rupert?"

He appeared to be thinking fast and hard.

"Look, it's too late, let's face it – we have no idea why it works – or doesn't – the way it does, let's get back to sleep," she said tired, laying a hand on his back.

He straightened up. "We don't know why it works that way, but... if she was a vampire _and_ remained a witch – for all we know for now, she'd be very much invincible, unfightable – here on the Hellmouth," he said slowly.

"Yes, but she isn't here, and neither is she a vampire," Helen objected, still not understanding where he was going.

"That's not the point," came the reply and he gave her a meaningful look.

* * *

><p>On the following Monday after her classes Helen walked to the library. When she entered she found Buffy, Xander and Willow arguing with Giles.<p>

"A field trip?! Now?!" Buffy said in disbelief. "Giles?!" She gave him that look as if she was expecting him to get it any second now how impossible their plan was.

He raised his hands in front of him defensively. "Buffy, I told you, it's only for a day, two at the most, and it is important."

Xander snorted. "Yeah. I bet. You two just want to get away from here and be alone to-"

"Xander, you better not finish that sentence," Helen said as she walked towards them. She saw Giles blush a little, he glared at Xander and took off his glasses to clean them.

He turned back at Buffy. "Look, it is essential that we find out as much as possible about Angel's curse," he tried again in a patient voice.

"Yeah? And when did it become essential to go watching other people's dragons?" Xander threw in.

Giles looked shortly at Helen, murmuring: "I knew I shouldn't have mentioned that part."

"This is so unfair," Willow exclaimed, sounding devastated. She was sitting at the table, playing absentmindedly with a pencil, and appeared to be sulking. Then suddenly she turned at Helen, her hopes raised up once more. "Helen, could you take us with you? Giles said we can't come... tell him – we'd be good. A-and it's during the weekend, so we wouldn't be missing any classes," she spoke all excitement.

Helen frowned a little confused and looked at Giles, who shook his head imperceptibly and raised his eyebrows in a desperate, resigned gesture. Clearly he already had been through several exhausting yet futile efforts of explaining to them why that wasn't possible.

"Ehm...," she wasn't sure what to say, she hadn't really thought about it until now – about taking the three of them along, it seemed clear that it was a trip Giles and her were going to undertake, she sort of expected the others to simply accept it, but now when she came to think of it – that had been rather naïve, especially when a Dragon-sighting was involved.

"When will I ever get the chance to go to Romania again? And see Dragons?" Willow begged. "Please?"

And the look of Willow's large brown sad, yet hopeful eyes reminded Helen why she was glad that she didn't have any children of her own. She had to look away, for she was sure she would probably give in if she stared in them for a second longer. "I-ah... I'm afraid we can't take you with us," she said in a soothing voice and when Willow exhaled disappointedly and leant back at her chair, Helen hurried to say: "You see it's not that we don't want you there, or that we'd want to be alone-"

"Phh," Xander smirked.

She decided she'd go with a white lie. "And besides the portkeys that we will be using, are not very safe, a-and they can only transport the two of us," she blushed a little and from the glare Willow gave her, she knew that the cleverest student of Sunnydale High, who had managed to read the History of Magic in two days, didn't buy it for a moment.

Giles later pointed out to them, that they would probably have a lot of troubles alone with explaining to their parents, where they were going for the whole weekend, and so willy-nilly the Scoobies accepted they had to stay behind, though not without a proper portion of further nagging and sulking.

On Friday morning Charlie appeared at Giles' flat, delivering the first of the portkeys they were to use on the way to their final destination. It was an old and rusted pot. "Where do you want me to put it? Remember you're not to touch it until you're leaving, that is tomorrow."

Giles shot the old thing a mistrustful glance, doubts were rising in him again whether this trip was safe enough, or whether he would return from it as a whole. Then he pointed at the free space underneath the staircase, where Charlie placed the pot and cast some incantations upon it.

"Good. Now," he turned at Helen, "shall we go over the whole route once more?"

Helen rolled her eyes. They'd been through it three times already.

"Just... do me the favor," Charlie said cheerfully, "I'd hate to go looking for you if you get lost."

"And how would we do that? It would take a complete idiot to not find the way from one portkey to the next one, unless you installed them miles away from each other," Helen said, again she was a little crabby that morning.

Charlie sighed and turned to Giles. "Mr. Giles, please, will you?"

"Uh-uh," Giles cleared his throat, "yes, we-uh... we take this thing in the early morning a-and it will... bring us to-uh... Anticosti," he said and Charlie nodded satisfied so far, "where we will find another... what... pot?"

"No, I said it was an old bald tyre you have to look for," Charlie jumped in.

"Right. An old tyre then, which-uh... again will transport us to your house-"

"No, it'll throw you at the Burrow, my parents' house," Charlie said patiently and gave Helen the look that was saying – _see, it's good we're repeating this once more_.

"Yes, well that's what I meant," Giles said, now slightly irritated. "There we'll-uh... jump into your fireplace- the fireplace of _your parents_ I mean, using the floo-network, and land in _your_ place in Romania, from where the last portkey should take us straight to the village where the Calderash woman lives."

"You forgot one thing," Charlie said solemnly.

Giles frowned. He was pretty sure there was nothing else.

"You're getting stuffed at the Burrow by mum, so you should plan an hour stop there at least, she'll want you to have lunch with them... Anyway it's probably a good advice for you not to eat much before the journey. Travelling by a portkey can be... well, you'll see," and he slapped Giles on the shoulder encouragingly as he walked towards the door. "So, it seems like you're well prepared, I'll leave you then and I'll see you tomorrow, all cheery and happy and rejoicing," he glared at Helen, "bye for now and have a safe trip." He smiled at them one last time, then disapparated.

* * *

><p>It was short after three o'clock in the morning as Giles and Helen, holding hands and giving each other a short nod, touched together the rusty large pot.<p>

At first Giles thought, that it wasn't so bad, wondering what Charlie was talking about. A few seconds later he was beginning to be really glad he had resisted the urge to have some breakfast before because he was sure he wouldn't have kept it, and by the time they landed – well, Giles fell hard on his face, while Helen managed to lay her feet on the ground a little more gracefully with just a slight totter – he was having serious doubts whether he really wanted to do this ever again, or better – he wasn't sure he _could_. It had been like a drive on a huge rollercoaster, only much faster and with a whole lot more twists. He was amazed that he still had all his innards in, though it felt like they were all in the wrong places now.

"Are you ok?" Helen bent down to him, then shortly looked around them. They had landed on a clearing in the middle of a forest, the sun had already risen here, and it was much colder than down in Sunnydale.

"Ouch," Giles' quiet squeal made her turn back. He sat up and took off his glasses. They had been broken, probably when he had hit the ground. His left hand was hurt, a scratch wound.

She took his hand and before he could speak, she pointed her wand at it, and muttered "_Episkey._" There remained two thin scars on his palm. Then she tipped her wand on his glasses, saying "_Reparo_," and they were intact again. "I'm sorry, I should have warned you to keep them in your pockets, you best put them away for the next bit." And she helped him to get up. "But otherwise you're not hurt?" She asked again, watching him take a few steps.

"No, I'm fine...," he said in an unusually curbed voice, "not-uh... fine as fine goes, but-uh... do we have to do this again?"

She smiled a little, remembering her first time with a portkey. She had forgotten how disgusting it could be. She took his hand. "Yes, once more, well actually twice, but the last one from Charlie's will be no trouble, it's only a short distance..."

Giles looked at her miserably.

"This time it might not be as bad, at least now you know what to expect," she said.

"And yet I felt better _not_ knowing," he murmured.

"Let's see who's the first to find the tyre, shall we?" She said overly enthusiastically, in an attempt to distract him and cheer him up a bit.

"I'm fairly certain I don't want to find it," he answered gloomily, but moved along.

It didn't take them long, after a minute Helen spotted the greyed old punctured tyre. They placed the pot right next to it, they would need it on their way back.

"So, are you ready?" She asked, taking again his hand first before touching the portkey, to make sure they wouldn't lose each other.

"Hardly, but-uh...," he said, quickly took off his glasses and put them away into his bag.

There was one difference this time, as they arrived at a large hayfield. _Arrived_ in Giles' case was quite a euphemism, he had been smashed again hard on the ground, but this time on his back and – however he had managed that – unfortunately on top of his bag. The crack he heard inside was unmistakably his glasses. _Lovely_.

Then he saw a blurry hand in his focus, offered to help him stand up. Only when he took it, he realized it wasn't Helen. He turned his face bewildered to his right and saw George Weasley smiling widely down at him.

"Welcome to the Burrow, Mr. Giles."

"We didn't know you'd be here," Helen said after she had repaired Giles' glasses once more and they headed down the lane to the house that reminded Giles of a drawing from an old fairy-tale book. At the first sight one would recognize that there had to magic behind its walls – or inside it, because the mere shape of the house wouldn't allow it to stand according to the natural and physical laws.

"Yeah, I took a day off, and Angelina too. When Charlie said you'd be coming, I didn't want to miss the-eh... entrance," he grinned and avoided Giles' glare. "Ron took over for me, and – I hate to show off, but the business has been going rather well in the past months, so that we were able to hire a new shop assistant, and might get another one soon. Angelina will be the size of a hippo in no time, and there'd be no space for customers left in the store with her around, so..."

"How is she?"

George shrugged. "Still pregnant," he said matter-of-factly, "quite moody, and-eh... developing rather weird and perverted taste for all sorts of horrible food," he added shaking his head in disgust, "... but otherwise she's fine, she's here."

"Are you-uh...?" Giles began, as he wasn't quite sure what and who they were talking about.

"Yes, I'll be a dad in a few months," George said proudly.

Giles and Helen exchanged looks behind George's back, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. _He – is going to be a father? Oh. Dear. Lord_.

"On the plus side, it might keep him busy, we might be rid of his surprise visits for quite some time," she said quietly. Giles raised his brows wondering, considering this new, favourable angle.

"What?" George asked distractedly. He had spotted Angelina in the doorway and waved at her.

They sped up a little to meet her. Her pregnancy was already showing, and Helen thought that she looked simply radiant, glowing.

"Hi! How are you?" She asked after they had hugged.

"Uhm... what's that saying? _Alive and kickin'_," Angelina replied laughing, laying her hands on her belly.

"Is it really?" Helen asked surprised.

"Yeah, I'm telling you, it's gonna be a boy," George exclaimed.

"Like girls can't kick that hard or what?" Angelina smirked. "She might be the future Gryffindor chaser, you know."

Soon they were joined by Arthur and Molly and short introductions were in order.

"Rupert," Molly immediately took him in, skipping the _Mr. Giles_, "welcome, and please, do come in," she motioned him to follow her inside, "I'm sorry, we didn't have much time to clean up, Charlie only told us yesterday, so you must excuse if it looks a bit messy, but I've cooked a nice lunch for you two..."

But Giles stopped listening as he was making his way through the hallway into the kitchen, and amazed he stared at all the queer, peculiar magical objects everywhere around him. He had already seen moving photographs of wizards, so that did not astound him anymore, but there was much more in here. In the kitchen, in the pot a large scoop was stirring the sauce – on its own. Dishes were being washed in the large sink – again entirely on their own. Something invisible was placing blueberries on top of a large cake, and a cloth was cleaning a window with a squeaking noise.

When Molly saw Giles' wide eyes, she turned pink and quickly said: "_Finite_," the cloth flew away and disappeared around the corner where Giles heard a soft splash. "I'm sorry, like I said, we didn't have time to duff the house-"

"Oh, please," Giles shook his head vehemently, making clear that the apologies weren't necessary. In fact he was so much taken with the place, it wouldn't even occur to him to find it messed or in need of any cleaning.

His eyes then caught the large wooden clock on the wall, above the fireplace. Only on the second sight he realized that it wasn't an ordinary clock. It had eleven hands instead of just two, and at the end of each was a round picture with a face. Giles recognized Ron, Ginny, Arthur, Molly, Charlie, Angelina and George. At first he thought that George was there twice. One hand was pointing towards large capitals saying "Home", the other hand with a face exactly like George's however pointed towards a small black cross. It wasn't hard to guess what it meant. And then he read the name beneath the picture – Fred – and there was a thin, hardly visible black frame around it.

He didn't see Helen coming to stand right next to him. "It's Fred," she said with a sad smile on her lips. "They were twins... untamable... _insufferable_...," she laughed shortly and shook her head, remembering her first class at Hogwarts, barely six years ago, "... inseparable...," the last word was more like a sigh.

Giles looked at her, question in his eyes.

"He died in the Battle," she said quietly, then turned away as she heard fast footsteps approaching and soon Arthur, Angelina and George entered the dining room.

Despite Helen's initial worries as to how they would all behave around each other, having a muggle in their midst wasn't an everyday event in the Burrow, especially for Molly and Arthur, but the lunch was all in all quite enjoyable. Molly was pleased that Giles seemed to appreciate her cooking, he even asked her about the making of the sauce she had served with the turkey, and Arthur was beyond happy, finally having a real muggle at his table, whom he could ask out about all these strange things the muggles did.

"Oh, would you have a look at something for me? You see I came across some rather startling objects the other day and I wonder whether you can tell me what they are," he asked when they had finished the second course.

Molly gave her husband a disapproving glare, but Giles said kindly: "Of course," and avoided Helen's look, fearing they would both start laughing at Arthur's endearing, almost comical enthusiasm.

"Great," Arthur said joyfully, and hurried away.

He returned a minute later holding two things in his hands and placed them on the table in front of Giles, then looked at him with expectant eyes, clearly over-excited. Giles looked down at an old open Walkman and a tape – _Queen: Greatest Hits II_. Someone drew the wires of the earphones through the holes of the tape and slipped – clearly with force - the earphones onto the two tape-plugs inside the walkman.

Giles stared at it for a moment, memories from his Oxford days slipped into his mind "Mhm," he cleared his throat.

"I can't seem to figure out how this works... I don't even now what it is supposed to be doing. It says _play_ here, but... I don't know what I'm supposed to be playing with, I tried everything... Is it merely a decoration item perhaps? Something muggles use to hang on their walls? No? Then pray what is it?" Arthur asked in a secretive voice.

Giles raised his head at Helen, and regretted it in the instance. She was beaming, holding one hand in front of her mouth, trying hard to keep a straight face.

Arthur noticed their exchange, but misinterpreted her amusement. "You know what it is?" He asked her.

Helen bit her lip. "Yes, I've seen it before," she said.

"What is it?" Arthur asked eagerly.

Helen shook her head, unable to speak. Giles recognized the signs – she was biting the inner side of her cheeks in order not to burst into laughter. She just nodded towards him – he was the one to explain.

"Well?" George got impatient.

Giles looked back at the thing in front of him and took the earphones out of the Walkman. He wondered for a moment how or why anyone would have tried something like that – to him it seemed too obvious that the tape – alone given its shape – belonged inside the black case, surely anyone could get that. But then he told himself to be more forbearing, _who knows, maybe they'll laugh at me when I leave because I didn't know what _Quidditch _was._..

He put the tape into the Walkman, connected the earphones, then offered one end to Arthur, who took it, eyeing at it confused, the other end he gave to George. He remembered that album, he had it at home somewhere, it took him a few seconds to recall what the first title on it was, then an amused smile appeared on his face before he finally pressed the play button. He watched them both wince a little as the song had started, and tried to imagine how the words "_It's a Kind of Magic_...", coming from a muggle-device, must have sounded in the ears of the two wizards.

An hour later, when they were literally stuffed as Charlie had foreseen, with cake and Molly's very own scones, they managed to make Molly let them go at last. They thanked for the lunch and promised to visit again some other time. Then Helen took a rich portion of the floo-powder and together with Giles they stepped inside the fireplace. She murmured _Charlie's place_ and strewed the powder around them. The last thing they saw was Arthur's face, with closed eyes, earbuds in his ears, nodding rhythmically and humming "_It's a kind of maagiic..._", completely absorbed by the music, then the picture dissolved and they were swirling through the space – or so it appeared to Giles – and about a minute later they both skidded out of Charlie's fireplace.

"About time," Charlie's voice sounded somewhere close, but Giles couldn't see anything. His glasses were – though apparently unbroken – completely blind and covered with ashes. "_Tergeo_," Giles heard Charlie say right before his vision got clear again.

"Sorry," Helen said, dusting off her clothes. "Molly's scones..." She added meaningfully.

"What?" Charlie's eyes widened. "She made the scones for you?" He asked incredulously.

"God, they were soo delicious," Helen said dreamily, throwing herself on the next chair, Giles right next to her, their stomachs were still full.

"And you didn't think of bringing me some?" He asked reproachfully, but then his expression changed and hardened. "Oh, right, I see what she's doing," he said nodding to himself.

Helen and Giles exchanged mazed looks.

"Well, I won't fall for it," he murmured stubbornly.

"Fall for what?" Giles asked.

"It's one of her little ploys to trick me into returning home for good. She's been doing this for quite some time now, like always cooking and baking my favourite dishes when I'm not there, then saying – _Oh, you should have been here last Saturday, I was making the pork_...," he said, imitating the voice of his mother only too well.

He looked absentmindedly out of the window for a while, still a little huffy. "Anyway, you have no time for lying around here, come on, hop-hop," he urged them to get up, "the lady is expecting you at five, you have twenty minutes. The portkey will bring you within a mile of her house, you should be able to see it from where you land," he was talking fast as he led them out of the house into a small garden. There, right next to a teeny pond stood the ugliest garden-gnome Giles had ever seen.

"Here, meet _Chinosh_," Charlie grinned, patting on the gnome's taperedted red cap, "he kindly agreed to fly you to Măgura. It's my private portkey, not registered, since I use it for all sorts of trips, so take good care of him."

"_Csinos_, 'ey?" Helen asked bemused.

"Isn't that Hungarian?" Giles wondered.

"Yes. It means _fetching_. Like in _neat_," Helen said with a trace of sarcasm.

"Seriously, don't lose him, we rather cling to each other," Charlie said earnestly.

"Clearly."

Although this last journey with Charlie's portkey was the shortest one as the distance they had to overcome was barely sixty miles, still when they landed – and this time Giles managed to land on his knees and with his glasses unscathed – he felt a strong urge to vomit, and only when Helen propped him up by reaching quickly under his arms it passed.

He collected his bag, while she took a look at their surroundings. They had landed on a hill, and down beneath them, in the distance and at the edge of a forest she could see a small cottage, smoke rising from the chimney.

When they were half way to the house, Helen slowed down. "I'm not sure how close I should come," she said nervously looking around them.

Giles stopped, watching her thoughtfully. "Well, I've been thinking," he started, "what if you just came along? We could take our chances... she doesn't know you, how would she know that you're a witch?"

"I don't know," she hesitated, "I have the feeling she will very well know. And I wouldn't want to blow our mission. What if she refuses to talk to us because of me?"

Giles knew he couldn't think entirely objectively when Helen was involved, but he just couldn't imagine such a case, couldn't believe that anyone would resent her. And if there was such a person, then he surely would not want to talk to them either, he thought defiantly.

"You're coming with me," he said firmly and in a terminal tone and turned his head towards to house, but waited for her to move again.

"Alright, but it'll be on your head," she said, and her hand touched her pocket to check that she had her wand with her, just in case.

The cottage looked quite new, it couldn't have been much older than a few years. They ascended the stairs of the veranda with heavy steps, not sure and perhaps a little anxious of what might expect them inside. They heard a quiet growling from behind the door and a short barking of two dogs.

Suddenly Giles turned at Helen horrified, something essential occurred to him: "I don't speak Romanian – how on earth are we going to talk to her?"

In that moment the door opened and a tiny old woman appeared in the doorframe. "I spent half a century living in Pittsburgh, so I don't think that should be a problem," she spoke with a surprising swift in her voice – for someone her age and stature – and a clear Western Pennsylvanian dialect. "And we didn't speak much Romanian before either, silly," she scolded Giles, "I'm a Calderash, we speak Romani!"

For the first time since their acquaintance Helen saw Giles being intimidated and... ashamed. He had closed his eyes for a second when he realized his stupid mistake, especially when _he_ of all people should have known better.

The two dogs slipped past their owner and began to sniff at them, first at Giles, then at Helen, whom they seemed to find more interesting, and clearly confusing. One of them stood in front of her and was eyeing at her with his head tilted, then he barked shortly, but finally walked aside to let her in. The old woman gave Helen a piercing look, then too stepped away and let her guests enter.

Her living room was very cosy, a fire was lit in the fireplace, a pleasant smell of some sort of a tea was filling up the room.

"You're here to talk about that vampire," she said grumpily.

"Yes-uh, yes," Giles said, a little nervous, "oh, sorry, my name is Rupert Giles, this is my-uh... friend," he turned at Helen.

She offered the old woman her hand: "Helen Thornton." She said it without thinking, the old habit recurring, it hadn't happened to her in a long time.

But their host didn't seem to notice her stiffen a little right away, the short moment where she held her breath only didn't escape to Giles. The woman however took Helen's hand a little clumsily, as if she wasn't used to such introductions. She motioned for them to sit down on the sofa, then bent down over the table and poured some tea into their cups. Giles and Helen exchanged insecure looks, as the silence was a bit awkward and they didn't dare to speak. She put the teapot back on the table, then sat down in the large armchair opposite to them, peering at them for a while.

"Y-you are..." Giles started reluctantly, he was about to ask her whether she was a descendant of the very clan of Calderash who had cursed Angel.

"Romaine, but everyone calls me Romy," she said snappily.

Giles hadn't even realized that she hadn't told them their name. He forgot momentarily what he was actually going to ask.

Helen smiled tensely. "Oh, like the-eh... muggle actress, right," she said to break the silence.

Now both Giles and Romy gave her baffled looks and she turned red, instantly feeling like an idiot.

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><p><em>AN: I'm sorry, once again I didn't get as far as I wanted to, somehow I got stuck at the Burrow instead of proceeding briskly to Romania :) and then I didn't want it to be too long, so it was the choice between posting this and now, or waiting another week or two, until it's complete – I went for now :) (also because otherwise it takes ages to proofread), hence the dumb ending. Next chapter "The Calderash" already in work.<em>


	37. Chapter 37: The Kalderash

Chapter 37

The Calderash

_AN: Just a short one, yeah, I thought Giles could use a little break from the portkeys, poor bloke :) And I was in a fluff-mood again, so I granted them a few moments alone again in the end ;)_

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><p>It took Helen another second to realize that her remark wasn't merely embarrassing, but also a delicate slip-up in front of someone who allegedly wasn't fond of wizards.<p>

"You know why we're here then," Giles hurried to speak just as Romy scanned Helen with another suspicious look, "it's because of a vampire, named Angel... or-uh... Angelus, as such he might be known to you. He had a curse on him and we were told that-"

"That it was my people who cursed him," she said in a crusty voice.

"Well, yes," he said hesitantly. He felt slightly uncomfortable under the scrutinizing gaze from the old tiny woman. There was something peculiar about her, he couldn't decide whether in a good or a bad way.

She was merely glancing at them without saying anything. Giles wondered whether he had got his hopes too high and whether this woman would be able and – more importantly – willing to tell them anything useful.

"We-uh," he began anew in a cautious tone, "we would be very grateful if you could tell us anything you know about it, perhaps you-uh heard the story, or you've been told by someone who was witness-"

"Why?" She blurted out.

"Sorry?" Giles asked.

"Why do you want to know?"

Giles shot Helen a quick look. They had discussed briefly before they left Sunnydale how much they should give away, and they had not come to a clear stand, mostly because they didn't know what or whom to expect, how this woman would treat and receive them or how she might deal with the information they would give her. Helen now gave him a short nod to tell Romy the truth.

"Alright," he said quietly more like to himself, then raised his head again towards their host, "we-uh... Angel...," he didn't know where to start or how to explain everything that happened since the time they first met Angel.

"We happened to know Angel, the vampire whom your people had given a soul," Helen said in a soft voice, "he was-eh... a friend, and he meant even more than that to some of us... but through something-," she paused, suddenly uneasy about how to mention Buffy's involvement in Angel's transformation. She wondered whether the woman would be able to guess what had happened.

"He was turned back into Angelus, he lost his soul again some two months ago," Giles took over again.

"How?" She asked very straightforward, but Giles thought he saw a challenge in her eyes, as if she was testing them. If he was to lie, he would have to be very, very convincing.

"We-uh... we don't know... exactly," he spoke slowly, trying to keep looking her in the eyes, "that's one of the reasons why we're here – to find out more about the nature of that curse."

"And what are the other reasons?"

Giles frowned. It was getting a little irritating, all these questions. It might have been a little naïve thinking that she would just tell them everything she knew in a long monologue, but he didn't expect her to dig at every word they'd say.

"Actually, that's the only reason really," he said and when he saw that she wanted to object something, he quickly continued, "we came to learn why and how exactly your people had given him the soul back and under what-uh... terms."

"And why do you seek all this knowledge?"

Giles shifted a little. He had hoped they would somehow be able to avoid that question, or better – the answer. After all he wasn't sure whether they should attempt to curse Angel again. That would also depend on how complicated the curse was and how safe it would be to tell that it wouldn't get _cured_ again.

While he was quickly outweighing all this in his head, to his surprise Romy spoke: "I can't help but think that you consider the soul my people had returned to Angel as... some sort of a gift," she said slowly, and her voice got a bit softer than before. "Yet you must see it was given to him not for his or anyone else's pleasure, it was supposed to punish him... He would remember every single crime, every murder he had committed, every single face of his victims... He was meant to suffer. So that the death of Syeira would be avenged."

"But now the curse was lifted, everyone else is suffering but Angel. He has resumed his former malice, he's become again as vicious and atrocious as he was before the curse," Giles replied.

When Romy didn't speak, Helen asked cautiously: "Why did the curse end?"

Again their host was screening them, as if she knew they already had the answer. "You tell me," she said at last with a trace of an indulgent smile.

Giles and Helen looked at each other rather desperately. Giles took a sip from his teacup, then pursed his lips. He gave Romy a gloomy glare, but finally decided it might be for their benefit if they would lay all cards open. He told her about Buffy the Slayer, about himself as her Watcher and about the past two years they had spent on the Hellmouth, fighting against dark forces from bellow. He stressed that often enough Angel had helped them in their struggle, and had even saved their lives once or twice. If this surprised the old Romani woman, then she didn't show it. In the end Giles also told her about Buffy's intimate relationship with Angel and their assumption that that might have been the trigger for the lifting of the curse.

Romy nodded slowly, before replying: "If Angel was to achieve one moment of utter happiness – so I was told – one moment, in which he would forget all that he had done and would not suffer, where the soul he had been given would no longer be the source of a torment to him, he would lose it."

Helen opened her mouth and shut it again, processing this information, and the cruelty of it when she thought of Buffy and Angel and how again that had happened.

"You punished him with a soul," Giles repeated slowly, "that was supposed to plague him, - and believe me it did, I have seen quite some vampires in my life, but none so depressing and brooding as him," he added, "he made you feel miserable just by the mere look at him, he-he was the embodiment of suffering, you did well on that part," he said and Helen shot him a quick puzzled look, not sure whether the irony she had heard in his now sharp voice was real or just imagined, "...a-and for hundred years he had not fed on humans – so you gave him that vexing soul only to take it away from him in the moment when he'd allow himself, without knowing the consequences, a little happiness."

Romy opened her mouth to say something, but Giles wasn't finished yet.

"Then – due to your ingenious curse – the soul you had given to him to avenge the death of the young girl – the soul is taken from him and he turns into a monster again, so that he can start killing anew, possibly directing his murderous cravings towards all those he had come to care for, and those who had had the insolence to make him just a bit happy... Did I-uh... outline it correctly?" He asked and for Helen there were no doubts now, he was clearly suppressing his rage.

"I did not expect you to understand-" Romy said, the odd faint smile still on her lips, she seemed entirely unimpressed by Giles' depiction.

"There's not much to understand," Giles said a little louder, "that is insane, and sick!"

"The curse served its purpose," Romy said calmly, "the revenge was taken. That was all that mattered to my people back then."

Giles leant forward in his armchair, his eyes were sparkling, but before he could give his reply – and Helen feared it might have got even louder and poignant – she laid a hand on his forearm and cut him off by asking Romy: "Can he be cursed again?"

In that moment one of the dogs came into the room and sat in front of Helen, staring at her with tilted head. Helen saw something flash by Romy's face, a short glitter in her gaze and once again her eyes wandered over Helen. She had the unpleasant feeling that they paused at the pocket of her trousers, where she carried her wand, for just a second longer.

"Your slayer loved him and now she will have to kill him," the woman said simply.

"Can you imagine in what state that had left her?" Helen asked, trying her best to sound as neutral and as reproachless as possible. "She's not ready yet to kill him. Even though he's doing his best to make it easier for her-"

"But in the meantime he already had killed and fed on dozens of innocent people, even sired some of them," Giles continued, he spoke urgently, but he managed to keep his voice down a little. "I don't wish to play down what he had done to your people by killing that girl. But what is happening now because of it-"

"It wasn't supposed to happen," Romy finally snapped impatiently.

"What do you mean?" Giles asked confused.

"The Elder women had been watching him since he'd been cursed. Everything seemed to be the way it was supposed to, until a couple of months ago when the Elder woman began to see signs that something was changing. The curse was still holding on to him, but there were things, outer influences that they had not taken into account and that were indicating that something might change soon. When the signs became clearer, some weeks ago they finally sent someone to overhaul the situation and if possible – to prevent the curse from being lifted." She paused there and for a brief moment sadness appeared on her face. "My nephew Enyos went."

"What happened to him?" Helen asked, already afraid of the answer.

"He didn't come back... From what you told me he was too late anyway, Angelus was already back by that time... Enyos was killed by a vampire on the same day he reached the town, the Elder woman saw it in her visions. A vampire named Drusilla."

Giles and Helen exchanged miserable looks.

"We're sorry," Helen said quietly.

"So you knew exactly why we came, didn't you?" Giles asked.

"Yes," Romy admitted tiredly.

"Your curse might be-"

"Stop calling it _my_ curse," she said angrily. "I didn't curse anyone. I wasn't even born when it happened. Just because my people did it doesn't mean I approve..."

Giles looked somewhat taken aback. Though it was obvious, he hadn't really thought about that.

"But I grew up among stories and tales of bad vampires and... wicked wizards," she said and looked at Helen intently.

_She knows_, Helen thought panicky and squirmed on her seat, Romy pretended not to have noticed.

"Is there any chance to curse him again?" Giles asked quickly.

"No," Romy denied. "The rituals are lost. They perished along with our village. At the beginning of the war everything was burnt down. We had to flee, leaving all our possessions behind. When I returned, there was nothing left. All gone, and new large houses and luxury villas with high walls around them stand there now."

"But surely you must have taken at least some of the books," Giles said, the thought of old dusty invaluable volumes disappearing in a fire was too horrible for him.

"No. I'm sorry, but you see when the gendarms came, our people irrationally grabbed their children and babies instead and fled in panic, and shamefully left the books behind," she said ironically.

"I'm afraid I can't help you," she added after a moment. "Besides, it might be best for all of you if Angelus would die."

Giles didn't want to think about it. "Buffy isn't ready for that yet," he repeated what Helen had said before. "And until she is there's no way to tell what he might do. None of us is really safe... He already threatened Buffy's best friend right after his transformation..." Then he turned his head at Helen, adding in a hard unterdone: "He almost snapped Helen's neck only two weeks ago."

"You?" Now Romy surely looked surprised. "But how could he possibly harm a witch? Or is there something wrong with you?" She asked, a clear challenge in her voice.

Helen turned red and bit her lip, then slowly turned her head to Giles, but neither he seemed to know what to reply.

"You thought I wouldn't notice?" She asked smugly, just before her face hardened. "How dare you come into my house?! Then ask for things it is _your_ fault they're gone?!"

Helen looked at her desperately, not having the slightest idea what she was talking about.

"What do you mean?" Giles asked.

"You betrayed us, back then. You were supposed to protect us, you had sworn, you were our friends, and yet you didn't move a brow when the soldiers came and set our houses on fire and hunted us and took dozens of my people, my friends, to concentration camps from where they'd never returned... and you wizards let it happen, despite the pact we had. Despite your powers! Shame on you!" She was really in rage now.

Helen looked at her defiantly. "I didn't let anything happen. In fact I wasn't even born by the time you were chased away from here. Just because it were wizards too who abandoned you doesn't mean I approve," she said spitefully, throwing at her her own reasoning from before.

The dogs both came running into the room and started barking at the two guests.

"Leave my house now!" Romy got up and shouted, she was shaking from fury.

They got to their feet, a little hesitantly.

"I can't believe that one of you filthy nasty witches would ever have the guts of stepping in front of my eyes! Get out of here!"

The dogs' barking changed into a more baleful growling and both Helen and Giles began to walk towards the door, they clearly were a little shocked by this sudden outrage of the woman who until then had remained astonishingly calm and composed.

In the doorway Giles turned at her one last time: "Please, we didn't-"

"Go away, get lost, I don't want to see you here again! No freak witches nor their friends are welcome here!" She yelled at them as she hurried to push them out of her door.

"But-"

_Slam! _The door was closed right in their faces.

"If you would just listen-" Helen said loudly, speaking at the door. Suddenly it went open, but only so much, that the two dogs came out and snarled at them menacingly. As the larger one was about to jump at them, Helen quickly pulled out her wand, grabbed Giles' hand and turned on her spot.

Giles experienced a short sensation, not so unlike the one with the portkey, but it stopped after two seconds, when he landed – astonishingly on his feet, with a slight stumble – right in front of Charlie's ugly dwarf Csinos.

"Uh-that went-uh... well," Giles sighed.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone with you," Helen muttered.

"Nonsense," Giles dismissed it. "It seems, she didn't have much to tell us anyway," he added in resignation.

"Let's get back to Charlie's."

Giles threw a miserable glare at Csinos, another journey with a portkey seemed to be just the crown on top of this "successful" day. Helen took his hand again and together they touched the gnome.

There was the sound of a loud splash as they landed, and Giles was sure he would vomit this time, when the feeling of his trousers getting soaked by water wouldn't distract him just enough to stop the urge. He looked around him and narrowed his eyes in the dark, it was already late evening here. Right next to him Helen cursed. "Sodding dwarf! Naturally _he_ landed on the grass!"

It looked like both of them landed in the small pond in Charlie's garden, Helen on her feet, so that only her ankles got wet, Giles however, who again had fallen on his knees, was much worse. _Marvelous. What a wonderful end to a wonderful day._

"You're back soon," Charlie greeted them, completely ignoring their wet situation.

"We're _sorry_," Helen answered sarcastically and stepped out of the pond, offering Giles a helping hand, while Charlie walked over to check whether his dwarf was unscathed. Only then he looked at Giles, whose lower half was completely soaked.

"Oh, I hope you have something to change into, Mr. Giles? You might catch a cold watching dragons like this," Charlie said reprehensively.

"No," Giles replied dryly.

"But you have a wand, don't you?" Helen turned at the red haired young wizard, glancing at him meaningfully.

"Oh, right," Charlie said, then took out his wand, pointed it at Giles saying: "_Siccate!_" and Giles watched, once again amazed, as his trousers went dry within seconds.

"Thanks."

"How did it go?" Charlie asked them as they sat down in his small living room.

They weren't half through their story, when Charlie suddenly looked at the watch and jumped up. "Oh, it's time!"

"Time for what?"

"Duh?! Dragons? Remember? The reason you're here?" Charlie was again rushing them out of the room.

"Now?" Helen asked. She was rather exhausted.

"Yes, now's the time. There's a fifty-fifty chance, then we'll try at dawn too. But sometimes they're already gone at sunrise, so we shouldn't miss on now, come on," he stepped into the garden.

"And pray how are we going to get there?" Helen asked and heard a silent whimper behind her, clearly Giles was not in the mood for yet another portkey trip.

"We apparate," Charlie said as if that had been clear all along. "You or me can take Mr. Giles by sidealong appartion."

Helen looked uneasy. She already had one, though only a short one, apparition behind her, she wasn't sure what another one would do to her. Giles was apparently thinking about the same thing, when he asked: "Is there no other way?" Though unwillingly, if it would make Helen more comfortable, he thought he would even survive another portkey. "What about one of those again?" He nodded towards Csinos.

"No, there's no portkey installed. Security reasons... Why?"

Helen looked at him beaten. She hated explaining it. "I cannot apparate very far on my own since-eh... that-eh... accident." She said, hoping he would understand without further questions.

"Oh," but Charlie seemed to understand quickly. He shrugged merely, "then you can apparate alongside me too, that shouldn't be a problem. At dawn you can drive on my broomstick, but I wouldn't let you fly now in the dark, not with our dragons out there."

To Giles it occurred now how bizarre this whole thing was. Had he heard such a sentence couple of months ago, he would have found the person a crackpot.

Helen nodded reluctantly. She knew that even with sidealong apparition there would be some side-effects. Besides she didn't feel too enthused about letting Charlie apparate them both, Giles and her that way, the danger of splinching seemed high. On the other hand the place in question was only about 25 miles away.

"Ok, let's apparate," Helen said at last and walked past Charlie, so that he would be in the middle between the two of them who were to apparate alongside with him.

Charlie took their hands, turned on the spot, and they were instantly pulled into a fast swirling. Seconds later they landed – all three of them on their feet and with all their limbs and eyebrows still attached, Charlie still holding their hands firmly – on the edge of a small clearing. A few yards to their left stood a tall tree stand. Charlie pointed towards the ladder.

"You go up, see whether you already spot anything, Kinga or Sándor, or both of them, though they had a nasty quarrel the other day so I doubt she'll let him anywhere near her in the coming few days," Charlie explained, then turned away.

"Hey, where are you going?" Helen asked irritated.

"I'll go get Ileana, we'll check it from above on our brooms, then we'll join you."

"But-"

"There are protection spells around the place, so the dragons won't notice you, but don't be too loud in any case, I'll be back soon, bye," and off he disapparated, leaving his two guests on their own in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, drowned in almost total darkness.

"_Lumos_," Helen murmured, holding the gleaming end of her wand over the first step, so that they would be able to ascend the wooden ladder without tripping.

Once they were up, they both took a deep breath of the fresh air. It was chilly and wonderfully quiet. It wasn't the same quiet they knew from Sunnydale at night. No, this was total silence, no sounds, but the occasional leaves brushed by the wind, or some nightly birds, but no voices, no distant highways, nothing. It reminded Helen of her early years in Romania and on the trips her father had taken them to when they were children.

"Can you see anything-," Giles wanted to say something, but stopped abruptly, as if surprised at the sound of his own voice – it sounded differently here, certainly much louder than he would have thought. Also it seemed clearer, Helen thought, as if... purer somehow. She smiled.

"No," she whispered, "not a thing."

They stared for a moment into the distance. There was a forest to their left and to their right, behind them the tiny clearing where they had apparated, and in front of them, as far as they could distinct in the darkness there was a large grassland, with some hills at the far end. There was no movement, no sign of any large animals, no dragons far and wide.

Helen shrugged after a while, it was quite cold. She straightened up the collar on her short cord-jacket and adjusted and tightened the scarf around her neck.

"Are you cold?" Giles asked.

"No," she said with a dreamy face, then turned to Giles. "Well, yes, a little perhaps...," she admitted, but when Giles was about to take off his tweed jacket, she stopped him: "Don't... I'll be fine," and slipped her arms underneath his jacket, embracing him and pulling him closer to her, "... if I can just slip my hands here," she said contentedly, then sank her head into his chest, "and lay my head here."

She felt terribly tired and a little dizzy, but strangely happy.

Giles stroke with one hand over her hair. It must have been something about this place, because he too – despite the horrible day he had been through – felt oddly relaxed, calm.

"What a day," Helen exclaimed, yet not in a desperate, miserable voice that would comply with the experiences of the past hours.

"It certainly was," he agreed.

"I'm sorry I busted our mission," she said again.

"I'm sorry she called you a _freak_," he replied and bent his head lower, so that their cheeks would touch.

"And a _witch_, yeah, that wasn't very nice," she said lightly, "though I'm getting used to it."

"If it's any comfort," he whispered into her ear, "you're-uh... my witch... and the most peculiar one, the most intriguing and amiable, and by far the most beautiful..."

Helen smiled and blushed, not used to being the recipient of such words, but nonetheless delighted to hear them. "I'm also the only witch you know," she pointed out amused. Her breath stopped for a moment when she suddenly felt his lips brushing her cheek, and closed her eyes.

He pressed a soft kiss on her lips, which had set her heartbeat on alarm.

She gulped afterwards, she certainly wasn't cold anymore. Heat was spreading through her. "A-and you are...," she wanted to repay the compliments, "... the most-ehm...," but as she was looking at him, no word would occur to her.

He looked down at her and raised his brows expectantly, pursing his lips to keep from smiling too widely.

"...hm... I can't come up with a word that would quite describe it, describe _you_ accurately...," she said thoughtfully.

"Well, that's great," Giles sighed in a faked disappointment.

"Also," she grasped the lapels of his jacket and pulled him down, "words are way overrated," she whispered and kissed him again and he responded with more hunger and more passion this time. Without noticing really he was gently pushing her backwards and pinned her against one of the corner wooden pillars.

Helen had the impression that she was getting hotter and hotter. This time he slipped his hands beneath her jacked and grasped her waist and Helen escaped a moan of pleasure as she felt the touch of his warm fingers on her body. She too began to frantically unbutton the cardigan he was wearing beneath his tweed, while neither of them broke off the kiss.

"What on Earth are you doing?!" The indignant voice of Charlie cut the silence around them only too loudly.

They both flinched immediately, quite breathless, and stared at Charlie, clearly it took them a few seconds to recover and to remind themselves where they were.

"I leave you for two minutes alone – in a watch-tower – where you're supposed to look out for Dragons, for a _very rare_ breed of Dragons I'd like to add, Dragons that other people would _kill_ to see, and what do you do?" Charlie dressed them down so that they felt like two teenagers.

They were both still a little flustered, their eyes fixed on the floor as they were adjusting their clothes and clearing their throats in embarrassment.

"Honestly," Charlie shook his head, he was clearly enjoying this too much.

Helen looked at him annoyed.

"W-well, there-uh...," Giles spoke trying to get them out of the discomfort-zone, "there's not much, w-we didn't see much..."

"You didn't?" Charlie asked in surprise.

Helen turned towards the large grassland in front of them. "No, all's quiet, no dragons," she said, "just-eh... well, trees, and forests, and hills... that... are... moving," she frowned, staring in the distance, where several of the copped-looking hills seemed to be rising bit by bit, "... and hey...," she furrowed her brows even more: "... I didn't know there were volcanos in Romania..."

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><p><em>AN: Thanks for reading, pls. review. As you might have noticed, it's not easy to work around the whole Kalderash-thing, especially when I did not integrate Jenny in the story so that I have to find another way for Giles and the others to figure out how to learn more about the curse. Right now I have two ideas in my head, I just must decide which one to use, so the update might take a little longer ;)<em>


	38. Chapter 38: Dragon Tales

Chapter 38

Dragon tales

_AN: Hey, dear readers, I'm terribly, terribly sorry for the long break and now this embarrassingly short chapter. I'll explain in the AN below. Thank you for the last review, again – very good thinking about the luxury villas :) Yeah, I have actually seen like large posh-suburbs in some post-communist countries, really like Beverly-Hills-es, that's what I had in mind, but you're right – in the time I was writing and thinking about here – Romy returning to Romania, around early 1990-ies – it would be waaay too early for anything like that. So, another thing to re-write at some point._

_Enjoy, there isn't much new action in here though..._

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><p>"Wait, is that-" Giles came closer to where Helen was standing and he too spotted the fiery fountains in the distance. On the first sight it looked like lava spitting out of a volcano, but on the second sight when Giles narrowed his eyes, trying to distinguish it better in the dark of the night he realized that there was something spitting out actual flames in very fast intervals. As if to make him more certain of what he was looking at, there suddenly was a loud growl, followed by another one, much louder and sounding much angrier, clearly coming from another dragon and soon enough Giles noticed another mighty string of flames.<p>

"U-oh," Charlie murmured behind them, "poor chap, looks like he's still in disgrace..." And he tapped Giles on the shoulder to offer him old-fashioned looking binoculars.

Giles watched the two large dragons spitting fire at each other menacingly, and was silently counting the distance between their watch-out and the dragons, then gave the binoculars to Helen.

After one particularly deafening growl that made all three of them jump up a little, they saw the silhouette of one of the dragons rise in the air, its large wings were swinging impressively as it was flying higher and higher up while the other one remained on the ground making weird snorting sounds. Small sparkles still kept emerging from its mouth.

"What was that about?" Helen asked still puzzled by the scene and returned the binoculars to Charlie.

"Well, they had a pretty nasty row couple of days ago. We've been guessing that he, Sándor – that's the one who stayed there," he began and lowered his voice as he motioned with his head towards the remaining dragon as if Sándor could hear him otherwise, "might have said something that she did not take very well, or he said it the wrong way, you know, using the wrong words or the wrong tone in his voice... or the wrong heat of his flames in this case I guess..."

Helen and Giles looked at each other amused about the way Charlie spoke as if it was all a very delicate matter.

"But, still, there seems to be some hope for him," Charlie continued brightly, "she didn't leave straight away this time, nor did she try to poke his eyes out like she did yesterday, so things might not be lost just yet."

Suddenly they heard footsteps behind them and soon a young woman climbed up the watch-tower.

"Hi," she smiled at them and raised a hand to a wave.

"Here you are," Charlie greeted her and Helen noticed him turning slightly pink when he shot her a quick look before turning back at the dark-haired girl, who had to be Ileana, his girlfriend.

Charlie motioned for her to come closer, then introduced them all.

"Very pleased to meet you," Helen smiled as she shook her hand.

The girl smiled back at them. "So, did you see? This time she didn't leave right away, she even spit fire on him, I'm guessing in a week's time they'll be making up on that clearing and all will be fine again, then hopefully we'll have a couple of little ones in a few months," there was a very faint trace of a foreign accent in her voice as she spoke enthusiastically, looking at Charlie and somehow after these few words Helen thought amused that the two of them had indeed found each other very well.

"That would be awesome," Charlie replied dreamily, considering the prospect of dragon-offsprings.

Giles saw Helen shiver imperceptibly from the cold air. "Well, it-uh... looks like we won't be seeing much tonight then," he said and rather subconsciously put an arm around her.

"Yeah," Charlie agreed, "we'll return before sunrise though and see what happens, what do you say?" There were the familiar sparkles of adventure and elation in his eyes that reminded them of Arthur a bit and his face when he had presented them the walkman.

They all apparated back to Charlie's house. Charlie walked with them inside and while searching some things together he instructed them: "Now off to bed, I'll be picking you up at...," he paused, thinking, "let me see, Ileana?" He shouted after his girlfriend who soon stepped in from the garden, "how long you reckon would it take on a broomstick from here to the look-out place?"

Ileana shrugged. "Hm, it's about 25 miles, not that far... well, on the other hand," she pointed at a large ancient looking double-broom in one corner of the living room, "on that thing there I suppose half an hour at least would be a good guess," she said innocently, Charlie glared at her.

"I think _that thing_ is just fine, after all, Mr. Giles hasn't flown yet on a broomstick, so slow might be better in this case," he countered complacently.

Giles stared at the broom thoughtfully, wondering just how many things he would do on this single weekend that he had never done nor even dreamed of ever doing before.

"Anyway," Charlie turned back at them, "half an hour means – you'll have to leave here at around half past five, or let's say 5:40 at the latest." He pretended not to have seen Helen's horrified expression as she was trying to count when they would have to get up then. She had been looking forward to a nice long sleep before returning to Sunnydale, hoping that all the events of the past hours and the change of scenery would keep the nightmares away at least for one night.

"Bedroom's upstairs, off you go," he almost shooed them away and towards the wooden staircase.

When they turned around once more hesitantly to ask where he was going to sleep, he raised his brows strictly and repeated: "5:40, not a minute later!" Then he grabbed a leathern bag and they saw him nodding towards Ileana, before he followed her out of the house.

Reluctantly they ascended the narrow stairs. It wasn't difficult to find the bedroom as there were only two rooms upstairs and one of them was locked, with a weird green-blueish light gleaming over the threshold. Helen frowned at it, but then proceeded towards the open door of what had to be Charlie's bedroom. It was spacious, with a large bed and fresh sheets on it, some old wardrobes and an armchair. Helen walked over to the window and saw Charlie and Ileana in the front garden talking excitedly and chuckling. Then Charlie took Ileana's hand and they both nodded at each other, then disappeared together. She opened the window then to let in some fresh air, she was feeling a little lightheaded and was almost expecting her nose to bleed, but after a few gasps of the cool air the feeling was gone.

When she turned away from the window, she couldn't help but smile fondly at the sight: apparently Giles had grabbed a book from Charlie's bedside table and the rest of the world had seized to matter, as it would happen to him on countless occasions. He was leaning onto the wall, his wide opened eyes were moving fast along the lines, he appeared to be literally swallowing every word. Judging by the picture on the old black cover the book dealt with... dragons of course. And when Helen's eyes swept over the room she had little doubts that Charlie did not actually own any books concerning other topics than that. Her look stopped on one particular title that laid in the armchair among others: _How to raise your dragon: Rules and guidelines to a safe(r) care of your pet or How not to set your cottage on fire. _Helen was just wondering whether Giles would be in any danger of wanting to read it and whether she better hide it or at least "replace" it, when the sound of Giles closing the book with a semi-loud slap startled her. He placed it back on the bedside table, then ran a hand through his hair tiredly. He threw a look on his watch and sighed. It was way after midnight. He raised his head and saw Helen staring at him moonily.

"What is it?" He asked in confusion.

There was a short pause, before she replied: "Nothing," and as he moved to walk over to her she realized amazed that it still set her heartbeat on high speed. Even after weeks, months even the touch of his fingers upon her arm was still causing the fascinating prickling sensation somewhere in her stomach.

Some half an hour later she fell asleep, feeling more than comfortable tucked in the tight embrace of his arms.

* * *

><p>"Rise and shine!... Wakey, wakey! Get up, you two!" The loud voice of Charlie Weasley seemed to be sounding all around the place, filling every corner of the room, it was hard to tell where it was coming from. Helen and Giles exchanged disgruntled, sleepy looks, both highly annoyed by this un-soft awakening. It took them about five seconds to realize where they were, just before Charlie's bright voice yelled again: "Are you up already?"<p>

"What is that?" Giles muttered bemused.

Helen looked at her watch through narrowed eyes. It was almost five in the morning, and still dark outside. The sun wouldn't come up for at least an hour.

"So, no snooze, get up now," the voice said more strictly this time.

Helen climbed out of the bed grudgingly and walked across the room to peer out of the window.

"That's better," they heard Charlie say. Giles felt very uncomfortable and kept looking around them to see where the young man might have been hiding. He thought that that would be a very ill-mannered intrusion.

Helen opened the door to listen whether there was any movement in the house, but everything was quiet and dark. She grinned to herself contentedly, returning towards the bed.

"It's an enchantment," Helen whispered, "he's not actually here. We have plenty of time," she added smiling mischievously as she climbed back onto the bed and laid herself down on her elbows, her face only inches from his.

"I KNEW YOU WOULD IGNORE THIS, BUT YOU REALLY DON'T HAVE TIME FOR A SNOOZE!" The two of them jumped out of the bed as the voice echoed through the room much louder than before. "NOW GET OUT OF THAT BED AND MAKE YOURSELVES READY! AND HAVE A BREAKFAST, BREAD IS IN THE CUPBOARD ABOVE THE SINK! I'LL BE THERE IN THIRTY MINUTES, WAIT FOR ME IN THE GARDEN!"

They both glowered at each other, before collecting their clothes and resignedly descending the stairs to have a quick shower and some breakfast.

"Let's have at least a monstrous breakfast on Charlie's expense," Helen suggested as she dived her head into Charlie's fridge in search for something to put on her bread. "What do we have here?"

Minutes later they were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and tea and eating all they could and would, their moods were gradually improving with every bite, so that by the time Charlie was supposed to pick them up, they were standing in the garden, chatting happily, feeling strangely carefree in a long time.

"Buffy will be disappointed though," Helen said more seriously after a while. It was quarter to six and there was still no sign of Charlie.

Giles leant onto the wall next to her. "Yes," he said quietly. "But it's not that we didn't try... We'll have to keep looking, checking more books, there must be something mentioned somewhere," he said firmly and Helen admired his optimism at this point.

It was almost six, when there was a loud pop and finally Charlie appeared in front of them, panting. "I know, I know," he said, raising his hands defensively in front of him, expecting some proper portion of nagging and grumbling, which however didn't follow. He glanced at them suspiciously, then as they kept looking at him cheerfully and expectantly, he shrugged merely. "Alright", he murmured and hurried to get the broomstick from his living room.

"Here," he handed it over to Helen, who took it rather reluctantly. She hadn't been flying on a broom in many years now. "You think you can handle it?"

"I hope so," came the slow and doubtful reply. To be honest she was having second thoughts, after all the apparition yesterday didn't seem to have affected her too badly, perhaps it would be for the best to apparate again...

"Good. Now get up and follow-eh ...," Charlie turned to the right and raised a hand to point the right direction, "... that way, that is east, very slightly north-east, you can't miss it." When he saw Helen's and Giles' rather anxious faces, he sighed and took the broom and murmured a couple of incantations upon it, before giving it back to Helen. "Here, that should do it. You should reach it in about half an hour. And fly as high as possible, only descend when you spot the place, right?"

Giles wanted to ask why, he still couldn't imagine sitting on the fragile looking wooden stock and flying high above the ground.

"We'll meet you there, I'll be looking out for you," and to give them some more courage he slapped them both a little too hard on their shoulders. "It is a beautiful flight, against the sunrise, you'll enjoy it, I'm sure."

He disapparated and Helen stared desperately at the broomstick for a brief moment, as if trying to remember how it worked.

"You did it before," Giles said softly in an encouraging voice. "Isn't it like bicycle? Once you've learned it you never forget...?"

Helen wondered. "Alright," she said to herself and stroke over the wood of the broom, before putting one leg across it. "Sit behind me and hold tight," she instructed him. When she felt his arms crossing around her waist, she turned her head quickly to look at him. Clearly he was having very mixed feelings about this, but was trying to stay calm. He gave a short, hesitant nod and that's when Helen pushed them off the ground.

Almost immediately she felt his grip around her tighten and he drew himself closer to her. And she didn't blame him, as they were rising up at an uncomfortable speed. That might not actually have been so high – Helen was guessing that this old Comet could probably hardly manage 60 miles per hour at the most, but given the fact that Giles was never ever in the air, flying across the country like this, with nothing but the sheer _air_ around him, nothing protecting him, not a single layer of metal or anything, it was a fairly scary experience even with one of the lamest broomsticks Helen knew.

The broom was holding its direction as Charlie had enchanted it to, Helen only had to adjust their height. She was pleased to find out, that she still remembered the ropes after all those years. Her mind was drifting towards memories of her and her brothers flying over the forests and hills, just some hundred miles southwards from here.

"I think I can see the place!" Giles shouted in the wind and dared to loosen one arm to point down at the tiny clearing below.

"Right," Helen nodded, "I'll go down now." She bent the top of the broom downwards and at once they were rushing towards the ground, its green grass seemed to be approaching alarmingly fast, but she managed to slow the descend down a little. They were only yards away now and Helen thought already that they would land smoothly, when suddenly the broom stopped entirely and they were thrown off it, both hitting painfully the hard ground.

"Sorryyy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Charlie ran towards them, "I forgot that part," he said in a small voice while helping them get up. They seemed to be unhurt, only Giles' glasses were broken. Again.

"What part?" Helen asked, still breathless from the crash.

"_Reparo_," Charlie said quickly pointing his wand at Giles' glasses. "Protection spells. You can only approach the tree-stand on your own feet."

Helen frowned, as she didn't see any sense to it.

Charlie looked around him to see where Ileana was, then added in a low voice. "I know, there isn't much sense to it, but it's procedure around here... Again, I'm sorry I didn't tell you." And unlike George in such cases he sounded truly devastated and guilty.

When they assured him that they were fine, they all moved along to ascend the look-out on the tree. Ileana was already there, sipping coffee from a large dragon-shaped mug. The sun was just rising behind the hills. Or rather behind the dragon, as Giles noticed, knowing better this time. He took again the offered binoculars and the look through them had reduced the distance between him and the dragon so that Giles winced at the first sight as it looked almost like he could touch the dragon's tale if he'd come a little closer and stretch out an arm. He watched the large female lying nestled on a clearing, he could clearly see its horny back rising and sinking at short intervals, it appeared to be asleep.

"Look there!" Ileana shouted and showed at something flying in front of the rising sun. It was growing larger and larger and both Helen and Giles stared at the male dragon with open mouths, as it was swinging his wings in a perfect and elegant way, before landing quite gracefully at a safe distance from the female.

"What is he thinking?" Charlie wondered. Sándor, the male dragon stood there for a while pretending to be just looking around him, but now and then he shot stealthy glances at Kinga, who still seemed to be deep asleep.

"She's just feigning," Ileana said quietly.

"You think?"

"Yeah, believe me," Ileana sounded very certain.

Sándor dared to take a few small steps towards his dear, then he would pause and wait a moment, before approaching her further. And indeed Kinga gave no sign of being awake or disturbed in any way, she merely squirmed a little in her sleep. Obviously Sándor took it as safe to lay down next to her, still keeping a few yards between them. His head was facing hers and the four observers noticed amused that he kept sliding his large head closer and closer to her by stretching out his long neck bit by bit. And during this whole action he kept opening and closing his eyes as if he actually wanted to sleep next to her, but was a little nervous and had to check every few seconds whether she was still there and not about to set him on fire. When he seemed to have found a comfortable and satisfying enough position, his eyes closed at last and wouldn't open again. A minute later they heard him snorting contentedly.

Charlie was just about to say that obviously Kinga wasn't feigning her sleep after all, when Giles and Helen, both watching through the binoculars, gasped loudly.

"Did you see that?" Giles asked amazed, and when Helen nodded excitedly, they looked at each other and giggled.

"What?" Ileana and Charlie asked simultaneously.

"That was so cute," Helen exclaimed. "This is better than television," she laughed. "She just opened her left eye to look at him and then closed it again and then – I swear I saw a tiny smug grin on her face."

"Well, it didn't look _that_ smug," Giles objected, "rather-uh... shall we say complacent..."

"Riiight?" Charlie drawled, "looks like the making-up might not take that long then."

They watched the dragon-couple for almost another hour, and when Sándor and Kinga "woke up" – or better stopped pretending being asleep – Charlie and Ileana were wondering whether someone had exchanged them during the night, as they were behaving very differently than just the night before, all traces of the previous fights and bickering gone.

"Well, that's the great thing about these creatures, they never get boring, they always surprise you, and they tick so completely differently, each breed has its own ways,... it's fascinating," Charlie summed it up.

"Is it your first time, Mr. Giles?" Ileana asked Giles. "Seeing a dragon?"

"Yes, yes, it is."

"And yours too, isn't it?" Charlie turned at Helen.

"Well, I've seen one before, actually not so very far from here," she replied.

"You have?" Ileana asked in surprise.

"Yes, but it was ages ago."

"It's a shame you weren't at Hogwarts during the Triwizard Tournament," Charlie said.

Giles looked at them both, with a question in his eyes.

"There was a competition couple of years ago at Hogwarts, between three wizarding schools, each having one champion-" Helen began to explain.

"Or two – in case of Hogwarts, Harry again had to be special," Charlie grinned. "Well, anyway they had to accomplish three special tasks and one of them involved dragons. That was the first time after many years that dragons could be seen in Britain."

"Where were you by that time?" Charlie asked Helen suddenly wondering.

She raised her brows, taken a little by surprise by the sudden change of the topic. "I was doing my auror-apprenticeship."

"Oh, right, I remember, you'd taken the other way, didn't do the Ministry-training," Charlie said thoughtfully. "Actually I heard the other day from Ron that Harry is thinking of doing it."

"Is he?" Helen asked, then saw Giles' face, once again he felt excluded a little, not knowing what they were talking about. "There are many ways of becoming an auror, you see. The usual, the conventional one let's say is the Ministry-apprenticeship and undergoing the courses and the training at the Ministry or by the teachers that had been appointed by the Ministry. One other possibility is a-eh...," she paused in search for the right word, "... let's say _private-_eh_..._ apprenticeship, by someone who is not attached to the Ministry, for example a retired auror or some such... There are only very few people who do it and usually it's difficult to find them or contact them."

"And you were trained by one of them," Giles asked.

"Yes, it's been about six years... It is, judging by what I saw at the Ministry, a training very different from theirs, it's concentrated into a single year, or ten, eleven months even, during which you live entirely secluded with your teacher on an unknown place..."

Charlie snorted.

"Well, it _is_ questionable whether it really is the better way, I had my doubts myself... I still have actually... but at the time Dumbledore had sent me to do it, it seemed the only way."

Giles watched now as her face and her expression had changed within the last few minutes. Only a while ago she was cheerful and laughing and now she turned serious, a sadness settled in her eyes, so that it was almost painful to look in them.

"Who was your _guru_?" Charlie asked curiously.

Helen pursed her lips. "Márkos," she dropped her look, "I haven't heard of him since years. He had disappeared right after Dumbledore's death, there-eh... were rumors that he was killed by the Death Eaters, but-eh..." She shrugged as if she wanted to fling off the unwanted memories. "I don't know," she added in a whisper, and tried a desperate smile.

"Well, wouldn't be the only one," Charlie murmured more matter-of-factly. "Kingsley says they've got a list this long," he spread out his arms to indicate a size, "full with names of missing people, mostly muggle-borns, but also quite a few notable persons from prominent pure-blood families that had disappeared over the years since You-Know-Who's appearance..."

Giles saw Helen stiffen, she felt clearly uncomfortable and cut Charlie short: "Why does Harry want to do it? I thought he was just about to finish his Ministry training..."

"Hm? I don't know for sure, only from what Ron told me. It sounded like he wanted some time on his own and the idea of being away from everyone for almost a year seemed appealing to him... Obviously Ginny was less amused about it," Charlie said meaningfully. "And it's not surprising that mum is very supportive of his scheme, as it would definitely sweep away any weddings plans for the time being."

* * *

><p>Helen was glad for the short broomstick flight back to Charlie's house, for she felt just a little bit discomposed after the few reminiscences. And indeed when she and Giles were up in the air and she felt his tight grip around her, and the April-breeze enclosing her face and tousling her hair, she regained her inner equilibrium soon again. Even her landing near Charlie's garden proved to be like from a textbook. When they reached the house, Charlie was just standing outside his door, inspecting a small package and frowning.<p>

"It's addressed to you," he turned at Giles and handed it to him.

Giles took it, baffled. It was indeed saying _To Rupert Giles_. He tore off the wrapping to discover... a book.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thank you for reading, I'm sorry for the shortness and the awkward ending. I'm not sure when I will be able to update. Fact is, I have been somewhat busy these days, having a wedding in two weeks' time and although I had naïvly thought at first that surely a small one would more or less organize itself, at this point hundreds of things are occurring to me that still need to be done. Add to it the work on the PhD I'm forced to keep up with – I don't think I will be posting a new chapter for about three weeks, or when, then it will be a very short one. I hope you'll forgive.<em>

_Review anyway, if you have a spare minute. I'm happy for every thought. I have no idea how a dragon couple would behave, I'm afraid what I described could just as well be cats :)_

_By the way I've been watching the film _Your sister's sister_ the other day and for some weird reason the character of Hannah played by Rosemarie de Witt, whom I haven't seen in a movie before, reminded me of Helen a lot, or at least at some moments it struck me that they were alike a little. Well, when one overlooks some major details, like that Hannah was actually a lesbian, then apart from that... :) Anyways, a nice film all in all._


	39. Chapter 39: Treasure Hunt

Chapter 39

"Treasure Hunt"

_AN: At last, sorry for the delay, but as I had foreseen, there wasn't much time left for writing in the past weeks, but it should be better from now on. I intend shorter chapters – like this one or the last one – and more frequent updates. Yes, yes, my talking-large resolutions again..._

_Well, hope you enjoy this one. Not much action, just a bit of fluff, and a library break-in... The title sucks, I couldn't think of any better, sorry._

* * *

><p>Giles was staring at the cover of a small, thin, rather cheap looking paperback-booklet – <em>The Kalderash – A Short History<em>, by Mates Calendar. When he opened it on its first page, a small card fell out. He knelt down to pick it.

_My father wrote this book some fifty years ago, it was only a small edition, around 50 copies. It might help you perhaps. Don't come back and don't ever make me set my eyes on a witch again. Good luck. Romy_

_PS: I already said it to you but I feel that I should say it once more – it might be best for all of you, if Angelus was slain. Think about it. _

* * *

><p>Barely an hour later Giles and Helen were already back in Giles' apartment. He even somehow survived the two portkeys without any further laments and Helen suspected that his mind was already so focused on reading his newly acquired book, that he had sort of switched off everything else around him. He didn't even give the book out of his hands while he took off his jacket and walked to sit on the sofa.<p>

"You want to read it right now?" Helen asked, with just a tiny trace of disbelieving petulance in her voice. It was late, it was middle of the night, or rather very early morning in Sunnydale and she was terribly tired. But when he looked up at her, his lips pursed into a strict line, she quickly said: "Sorry, that was a... dumb question."

"You can go to bed if you want," he offered.

"No," resigned she threw herself next to him on the sofa, then took out her wand and while he was frowning at it, she pointed it at the book, murmuring: "_Duplico_." However absolutely nothing happened, the book would not reproduce itself. She glared at the small paperback. "Why doesn't that surprise me in the least?"

She then got up and hurried to the kitchen to fetch two glasses. On the way back she grabbed an open bottle of wine. She poured some into the glasses and took a sip from hers, while Giles shook his head slightly that he would drink his later, and was watching her in a curious amusement as she let herself down on the sofa again, laying her head onto his lap contentedly, then took the book from his hand and held it up on her chest so that the both of them would be able to read it.

"You'll fall asleep," he said softly.

"No, I won't," she replied lightly.

"Oh no? What with the wine?" He teased, but stroke a lost string of her hair off her forehead tenderly. "I'm giving it ten minutes before you sleep."

She tilted her head back a little to look him in the eyes. "Do you want to read it or not?" She asked ignoring his remark.

"Sure," he smirked and stretched out his hand to hold the book upright.

There was a short introduction on the first two pages where Mates Calendar explained his motivation for writing the book – generally: to let his grandchildren and their children, who might never return to their homeland and might soon not be even speaking their language anymore, know at least some of the history and the traditions of the Kalderash people.

They found that the first chapters were less interesting for them and there was little new what they wouldn't already know from other books they had been hitting during the past weeks.

"Oh! Oh, here's something," Giles whispered excitedly after a while, "... _often confronted with dark powers and creatures from beneath... the Kalderash were forced to learn how to defend themselves and strike back. Over hundreds of years ... developed a wide diversity of rituals, some so powerful that they could compete with the magic of the wand..., these have helped to keep them safe... Unfortunately after the events of... most of them are lost..., despite centuries of careful and even meticulous preservation we now only dispose of what is a small fraction of those rituals, though possibly, hopefully, some of the old records, especially the manuscripts and incunabula from the Athalia-era of the 15__th__ century, which had served as drafts for most of the later and manuscripts and prints, might be still hidden in one or another library in Europe..._ What do you think of _that_?... Helen?"

"Peeves is sneaking around," came a curbed reply and Giles looked once more at the pages, baffled, wondering whether he had missed something in his reading.

"Who? Where?" He asked perplexed.

"Fifth floor," Helen murmured.

Giles frowned and finally bent his head a little to see that her eyes were closed and she was actually talking in sleep.

"Helen?" He said laying his free hand on her shoulder. "Helen?"

"Mhm?" She muttered and shifted a little, but didn't open her eyes.

"Perhaps you should go to bed, I'll read this to the end," he whispered.

"Mm, thank you, I'm quite fine here," she replied in a sleepy voice and the quiet content smacking noise at the end of the sentence made Giles smile.

"Alright," he said to himself, took a sip from his wineglass and continued the lecture.

He was almost through with it when he realized someone was fumbling on the buttons of his shirt. "What are you doing?"

As she had less to no success with opening the shirt from her lying position, she now sat up and reached her hands out for the first button. Her eyes were only two narrow thin lines, it looked like she was still half asleep. "Getting my nightshirt," she declared dozily, "I think I'm going to bed now."

"Is that so?" Giles asked in a faked surprise, but did not stop her. "And who says you get to wear _anything_?" He threw the book on the coffee-table and took off his glasses while she was still struggling with his shirt.

"Is that a threat?" She asked, and amused he noticed that her eyes had gone just a little wider.

"Well, I'd rather think of it...," he was answering in this low velvet voice, almost a whisper that made her shiver, especially when at the same time he casually laid his hands on her hips, "... as an-uh... inducement... or an offer." She blushed now, feeling completely alert again.

They woke very late the next day and over breakfast Giles summed to Helen the rest of the book Romy had sent him.

"I'm afraid it won't help us much. There was nothing really new in it, nothing useful frankly, except for the meagre note that _there might be some old records spread somewhere in some hidden libraries..._" Giles said gloomily.

Helen furrowed her brows at those words. There was something... her mind was trying hard to work out what it was - _library, old books, rituals... old libraries, restricted sections... father..._ Suddenly she straightened up and hit the counter with her fist. "But of course!... There is an old library in Alba Julia my father used to frequent very often, they had a good collection – in their restricted section in the basements of course – on old rituals and all sorts of things muggles would probably be too scared of..."

"You mean the Batthyaneum Library?" Giles asked.

"Yes," she replied, not even surprised that he knew it.

"But it's been created at the end of the 18th century, that's not nearly old enough. According to this Mr. Calendar we should be looking for much older things," he objected.

Helen gave him an indulgent look. "You of all people should know better... it may have been established then, but from what I know they store much, _much_ older stuff in their basements," and a mischievous smile appeared on her face, "things they had collected, inherited, taken over, stolen... you know how these things work."

"You mean in the restricted basement. Where no visitors are allowed," he said and gave her a pointed look.

"Well, my father could work around it, and so can we," came an airy reply, and she was already getting to her feet.

"Hang on. You want to go right now?" He asked.

She turned at him in surprise. "Why not? It's Sunday night over there, chances are we won't be disturbed by anyone... I thought you'd want to go."

"I-I-I do... just-uh...," he began stammering, then his expression turned dim. "Does that mean we have to travel with that pot again?" He pointed to the corner of the room where the portkey stood still that had brought them back only hours ago. "Can't we take a plane, like normal people?"

"No, it's faster this way, plus it saves a lot of money," she pointed out.

"Well, I'd rather spend some money and save my innards instead," Giles replied in a low sarcastic voice.

"Come on now, we better floo Charlie before, just to check with him that he did not yet remove the other portkeys," she collected her clothes from the other night and they drove over to her house to use her fireplace. "You should think about getting a floo connection in your place too," she suggested during the drive.

"No, thank you, I prefer it this way. It's enough your friends keep popping up whenever they like. At least I feel better knowing that no face will turn up from the fire, burning and talking... that's just... a horrid sight."

* * *

><p>An hour later they landed once again on the field around the Burrow. It was already very late here, almost midnight, and the windows of the tall magical house were all drowned in darkness. Charlie had said that with some luck they could just walk in without waking anyone and use the fireplace to get to him. And so Helen carefully pushed the doorknob and held out her wand, murmuring "<em>Lumos<em>". They were just hurrying through the hall towards the living room, when a voice made them jump.

"Who's there? Show yourself! _Titillo_!"

Both Helen and Giles squirmed at the same time and began fidgeting, Helen was giggling uncontrollably from the tickling spell. "Sto-stop it! G-geoorge, it's us!"

Then the light went on in the room and the three of them were staring at each other, Helen and Giles a little breathless from the tickle-attack. "God, is that what you use to shake off thieves?"

"Well, it did work, didn't it? Or were you able to steal anything?" George replied. "Merlin's pants," he shook his head, still a little startled. "What are you two sneaking here around for anyway?"

"We must use your fireplace again to get to Charlie."

"What for?"

"We-uh... want to have a look at a library near there," Giles answered, scratching his tickled back.

George raised a brow. "You two –", he paused for a second and Helen saw the familiar sparkles flare up in his eyes that would appear every time he was about to make fun of someone and was enjoying the moments before, "... going to see... _a library_?... What is _wrong_ with the world?!"

"Yeah, I had seen that one coming," Helen murmured at the joke and smirked at him in half-hearted annoyance. "And why are _you_ sneaking here around in the dark at this hour?"

"Ugh, I was hungry. Angelina and the little quidditch-beater inside her finally fell asleep and I just needed a bite of mum's scones," George said, proceeding towards the kitchen. "You want some?"

"No, thanks, we're rather in a hurry," Giles replied.

"And just between the three of us," Helen was about to tease him back a little, "you should be careful," and she pointed at George's stomach, "it's beginning to show bit by bit, you don't wanna be a round daddy that cannot keep up with his son..."

George would look down at his belly and frowned. "What?"

But Giles was already pushing Helen out of the hall and to the living room, turning sideways to say quickly to George: "Nothing, she's just-uh... tired. Thank you, we'll be off then and good night, and sorry for the disturbance."

When they landed at Charlie's, he and Ileana were already expecting them. "At last," he greeted. "Good. We have checked the library and found a spot where we can apparate you. It is deserted now," he looked at his watch, it was way almost two in the morning, "there's only one watchman outside, but I expect in a few hours the janitor will turn up, possibly even some staff, so you should hurry."

Charlie and Ileana then apparated the both of them inside the heptagonal fortress of Alba Julia called Alba Carolina, only a hundred yards from the building of the Biblioteca Batthyaneum. The street was dark, only one streetlamp was flickering somewhere. They could see a dim light in one of the windows on the ground floor. The watchman was reading a book and sipping a cup of coffee.

"Alright. You best put a confundus-charm on him or something," Charlie suggested as they stopped at the entrance. "We'll leave you from here. Do you think you can apparate back on your own?"

Both Helen and Giles were already focused on getting inside so that they weren't thinking of their return, and she merely nodded distractedly. "Yes, that'll be fine, you can go now, and thanks."

"Right. I might not be at home when you get back, but just use the fireplace when you're leaving, floo-powder's in a leather bag next to the kitchen door. Bye... And remember, you're there to find books," he added and grinned at them.

Helen and Giles exchanged frowns, but they understood almost immediately Charlie's allusion to the previous night when he had caught them kissing while they were supposed to watch the dragons. They both flushed before turning back towards the door.

Moments later they had managed to get quietly past the guard, Helen was determined to use magic on him only if absolutely necessary. She had to unlock several doors with her wand, and despite the less straining sidealong apparition she was little by little feeling its affects. Thankfully, they soon found what looked like the right room in the basement where the catalogues, card indices and inventories were stored they had to look through first to find the titles of relevant books or manuscripts. At first Giles thought how nicely organized and neatly written those records of kept books were, but soon he and Helen realized these were the wrong entries, where only books from the 18th century onwards were enlisted.

"This isn't what we're looking for," she stated dryly, "there must be more, somewhere that's else."

They got to their feet again and began to search the basement anew.

"I wouldn't have thought you had it in you," Giles said amused as they were checking the doors.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, breaking in in libraries and such..."

"Well,..."

"When you said your father used to-uh... _frequent_... this one often... you actually meant he broke in...?"

"Yes, I'm following in his footsteps right now, quite literally," she smiled, thinking fondly of her father for a brief moment as she tried to imagine him skulking in here all those years ago. "But then, we're not doing anything bad really, are we?" She mused.

"Not-uh... bad. Illegal though..."

They came to a halt in front of one particularly intimidating and heavy looking door, which apparently not everyone from the staff was permitted to enter. "_Alohomora_," she whispered, feeling the excitement rising in her, she was sure there would be something interesting in here. A clicking noise told them that the door went unlocked and they entered at last... and gasped.

"Oh... dear... Lord," Giles said in a grave voice.

Helen's jaw dropped. "How ever are we going to go through all these?"

The room wasn't very large, yet it looked very messy, there were books literally everywhere. First there were the bookshelves along each wall and in the bookshelves lay hundreds and hundreds of books – by closer look they saw that the books didn't have any shelfmarks. In the middle of the room there were two large desks, other books were piled on them along with old file folders, and some dozens of books lay carelessly thrown on the floor, they might have fallen down from one of the shelves that seemed to have been either overthrown by someone or – more likely, as it looked very old – had just given in under the weight of the old volumes and its own age. There was also a thick layer of dust everywhere, it seemed that no one has been in here for quite a while.

"Should I ever again complain about a mess in our school library, please... do remind me of this," Giles murmured and carefully walked across the room towards the two desks, where he took up one of the file folders to see its content. Helen turned her attention to one of the shelves where large, but thin volumes were stored that looked like old indices, and she was right. She took out a few of them and set down at the desk to browse in them in hope to find something interesting.

Hours later they had had a peak into barely a fraction of all that was in the one room, made a few notes and written down a couple of titles they would want to look at, but as they were worried and unsure for how long they would be left undisturbed, they decided to go looking for the few things they had discovered so far.

"How many titles do you have?" She asked him.

"Only three... oh, and I must see this one," he came over to her and showed her his notes, pointing excitedly at one title he had written down. Helen couldn't read it as it was in Greek.

"What is it? Something on the Kalderash?" She wondered.

"No! It's a 15th century copy of Nestor's anthology on demons and gods from 200 BC! It has been believed to be lost, it's only mentioned or referred to by very few renaissance writers, but according to this list," he was talking in a thrilling fever as he grabbed the index book, where he had found the entry, "they've got it. Right here," he added in a conspiratory whisper.

She was looking at him, again chewing her cheeks to prevent herself from grinning. As she wasn't answering, he repeated. "I _must _see it."

"Right," she nodded, "uhm... anything on the-ah... Kalderash-topic by any chance?" She asked innocently, trying not to hurt his feelings by the lack of her own enthusiasm for an old demon-book.

"Oh, right," he straightened himself up, scratching his head embarrassed, "not much I'm afraid. Only one, but I suspect it's the very same book I've got at home, only it seems to be a copy in Romanian... Still, we better look it up, might be that there are some additional things... And you? Did you find anything?"

"I'm not sure," she said slowly, looking at her notes, then back into one of the records.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I haven't found anything particular, only two or three things I'm pretty sure you've already read."

"But?" He raised his brows.

She sighed and pointed with her pencil on one entry. "See this? This whole index deals with the records from an older library, from the protestant school that was established here in 1622. It mentions a whole section of books dealing with _zingari... _or even _caldarari_ and their customs... and rites and... ceremonies," her eyes flew over some of the titles mentioned.

"That sounds very promising," Giles said brightly as he bowed over Helen's notes.

"It does. Only it's not here," she replied exhaustedly.

"Not here?" He looked closer to read the text.

"No. If I understood it correctly," she showed him a hardly visible note at the margin, written in German and clearly later by another hand, "then at the end of the century this Thököly-chap managed to save parts of the protestant school library before the Turks would come, and he took a great part of the books with him to one of his estates."

"Where to?"

Helen lifted the book to have a better look at the almost faded handwriting. "Ahm-... to a place called-ah... _Kes-mark_," she pronounced the unknown name slowly. "Yes, Kesmark, that's what it says."

Giles stared for a moment at the note, then his lips turned into a complacent smile. Helen watched him curiously. "Do you know the place?"

"Yes, as a matter-of-fact I do," he said casually. "God, this is turning into a treasure-hunt," he added in a weary voice. "Alright, let us get those few other things together, and we better leave. What time is-"

He didn't finish when they were interrupted by the sound of the key rustling in the key hole. A second later a man stood in the open door and stared at them with an open mouth.

"Ce este-" They heard him speak just before Helen grabbed with one hand her notes and with the other Giles' arm, got up from the desk overthrowing the chair, and they disapparated.

The moment they landed in Charlie's garden – in the small pond again to be precise, for some reason that was the first thing that had occurred to her at the moment of the apparition – she already regretted it. It's been was over seventy miles, and she usually got herself messed at apparating merely within Sunnydale, so to say that she now overstrained herself just a bit was an understatement. Sure enough small drops of blood were already dripping at a fast pace into the water of the pond, and when she tried to stand up, it felt like someone was stirring her surroundings so that she couldn't find a halt and fell back into the water.

She must have passed out for a moment, because when she opened her eyes she found herself lying on her side on a sofa. Giles was sitting next to her on a chair, gently pressing a wet towel upon her neck and talking to Charlie. She felt dried blood beneath her nose.

"You're awake," Giles turned to her as he noticed her move. "How are you? You look awfully pale," he said and took the towel to wipe off the rests of the blood from her face.

She tried to sit up. Her head was droning, all her limbs felt unpleasantly light as if they consisted of foam instead of bones and muscles, the room was spinning at an uncomfortably high rate and she threw herself back into the horizontal position and closed her eyes again. Yet it didn't make the spinning go away. "It's disgusting," she muttered, pressing a hand on her forehead in a futile attempt to stop the swinging sensation. "What time is it? Shouldn't we get back to Sunnydale?"

Giles pulled his chair closer and took her other hand, saying calmly. "We have a lot of time before we need to be back..." She heard Charlie's footsteps leaving the room quietly.

"Good." She replied, then moaned quietly in discomfort. "I hate to whine, but I really don't feel very well right now. Not portkey-well anyway."

"Don't worry now, we're not going anywhere for a while," he assured her in a soothing undertone.

"Mhm...," she nodded, and in a need for some distraction from the unpleasant lingering aftermath of the apparition she suggested: "Why don't you tell me about this Kesmark in the meantime?"

* * *

><p><em>AN: Right. A weird chapter all in all, I admit. Still, leave a comment, tips, any thought is most welcome and motivating ;) <em>


	40. Chapter 40: Night Train to Kesmark

Chapter 40

Night Train to Kežmarok

_AN: Thank you for the past encouraging reviews and pms. _

_I know there's a lot of travelling in the past chapters and in this one, I hope you can still bear it, I promise to ship Giles and Helen back to Sunnydale really soon :)_

_As I have really no ideas for chapter-titles anymore, I just borrowed this one from Pascal Mercier's _Night Train to Lisbon_ (a really awesome book btw.)_

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><p>"Mhm...," she nodded, and in a need for some distraction from the unpleasant lingering aftermath of the apparition she suggested: "Why don't you tell me about this Kesmark in the meantime?"<p>

"Alright," Giles agreed, "what would you like to know?"

"What is it? Where is it? What is there and why is it there?... Is it nice there? Is there more books?... ... Will we go there? Do they have an airport please?... Do they have blueberries?... I'd really like some right now... How do you know it and how do you know what's there? And how comes you know everything about anything?" She burst out, wanting to drown the awful spinning and ringing in her head.

Giles smiled. "I don't know about blueberries, might be, though not at this time of year I suppose... But they have a library," he said brightly as if that should compensate for and even outbid anything else.

"You don't say," Helen muttered. There was an unpleasant tickling in her nose that felt familiar. "Where is it then? And how do you know about it? I've never heard of it I think..."

"Well, you also haven't enjoyed the rigorous education as a becoming watcher. I dare say, at the risk of sounding immodest, that there aren't many libraries I haven't heard of, not in Europe at least. I've spent several months with learning the most important and the most notable or simply the oddest ones by heart."

"Oh, is it an _odd_ one then?" She asked, her curiosity arose.

Giles raised his brows. "To tell truth I have no idea... I've never been there. It is a small town in nowadays Slovakia, called _Kežmarok_ – not sure how they pronounce it... or _Kesmark_ in German as it was saying in those records, I somehow never had the chance or reason so far to go there, though I recall one of our tutors saying that there might be some real treasures hidden."

"What kind of a library is it then?"

"It's attached to a protestant school as well, although it is actually older, presumably from the late 15th century, so way older than the Batthyaneum library... I think it's perfectly possible that those things Thököly succeeded in saving from Alba Iulia did land in that very library in the end."

"Hm," came a thoughtful nod from Helen before she chuckled, "Buffy and the others will be simply thrilled to hear that we are going on yet another field trip... and without them again."

"Well, we're doing it for her too, though I suppose she will be displeased indeed," Giles agreed gloomily, "especially as I intend this time to do it properly," he added and gave her a meaningful glare.

She glanced at him through half opened eyes. "What do you mean by that?"

"First – we will be using a plane, not some bloody pot or dwarf," he said in a low voice in case Charlie was still within a hearing distance.

Helen looked at him, amused by his cursing – he really must hate the portkeys, she thought. "Well, that suits me just fine, I can do without it too," she consented.

"Second," he continued and the corners of his pursed lips were twitching again, he had the feeling she wouldn't like the following, "we will _not_ break in into the library, but will pretend to be the regular, respectable visitors..."

She stared at him as if she did not understand what he was saying.

"... who would like to see their books, in a daylight, and preferably without fearing to be interrupted by ghastly janitors in the morning."

"Oh, come on, admit that it was nice in a way, and exciting."

"You mean beside the fact that we did not actually get to see any books except for the indices... and I so _wanted_ to hold that Nestor-copy in my hands," he said in a sad and disappointed voice.

"Well, we will just have to break in there some other time," she replied to cheer him up.

He looked at her strictly. "No more break-ins as I said. I mean it... It's not worth it," he added firmly, examining her marble unhealthy looking face.

Helen shot him a faked pouting look, saying, "Spoilsport," when she suddenly felt something in her nose, the tickling from before, only a lot nastier, but it stopped almost as soon as it had started.

"You're alright?" He asked after he had noticed her shrug a bit.

She nodded and wanted to say something when seemingly out of nothing her nose began to bleed anew, much more heavily than before. She quickly sat up and saw what felt like a rushing flow running from her nose.

It took them both by surprise, and for a second or two Giles just stared, then grabbed the towel again to press it on her neck, but it was dry by now, so he gave it to her to hold it beneath her nose so that she wouldn't bleed all over Charlie's carpet. Yet the bleeding was getting stronger and fiercer within few moments and Helen turned to Giles, murmuring "Bathroom." He helped her get up, letting everything fall on the floor, looking uneasy und hurrying with her towards the hall, yet after a few steps – while retracing their way with blood drops – they decided the kitchen sink was the better as nearer option. Helen bent over it, but she felt like she might pass out again, there was this lightheadedness and the foamy feeling in her limbs and with one shaking hand she fumbled for Giles who was behind her to find some halt on him. He stepped closer now to her side, putting one arm tightly around her waist to support her, the other hand he laid on her forehead and pressed gently against it so that in her dizziness she wouldn't sink her head too much and the blood could drop down as freely as possibly.

"Mr. Weasley?" Giles shouted, but as he feared there was no response, Charlie had long gone to work. He was frantically looking for some towel or cloth without letting go of her, but as there was none he pulled out his own kerchief he used for cleaning his glasses, turned on the cold water to soak it in and laid it at the back of her neck. The bleeding wasn't getting any better though, minutes were passing and he was feeling his own heartbeat quicken at the sight of the red flow that kept filling the sink. The fact that Helen appeared to be much calmer than him was both reassuring and alarming, even disturbing at the same time. He wondered whether she was realizing just how much blood she was losing or whether she was too woozy to care. When he sensed her leaning herself onto his arm even more he was truly beginning to panic. He was thinking fast what he would do if it got worse – he didn't speak any Romanian, how would he manage to bring her to a hospital... hell, he didn't even know where exactly they were and which direction the next town would be and most of all – how to get there with Charlie gone and no means of transportation at his hands apart from an old broomstick he could hardly wield... and then – just as suddenly as it came – the bleeding stopped, not all once, but within seconds the few last drops dripped down and then as if someone had turned it off – nothing. They remained in their position for a few more minutes, making sure that it really was over. Then Giles let go his hand off Helen's forehead and turned her around to have a closer look at her. He didn't dare to guess how much blood she must have lost, maybe it just looked much more terrible than it really was. Her eyes were open, though somewhat unfocused and the pupils wider than they should be, and she was paler than any vampire Giles had seen, but otherwise she seemed alright and present, or at least as alright as anyone would be after this.

"Good lord, don't ever do this to me again," he exclaimed in relief after a short pause, "you scared me to death."

"Gladly," she whispered exhaustedly.

They walked back to the sofa and she only now noticed the blood stains on Charlie's carpet. Giles seemed to know what she was thinking and looked at her strictly. "I'm sure Mr. Weasley can take care of that when he returns," he said, his tone making clear that he would not let her do any magic soon.

"I hate it," she said after a while when they sat down.

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head and sighed. "Being like this... _you_ seeing me like this... the mess I become every time I...," she paused and closed her eyes for a moment, "... and knowing it's my own fault," she added in a barely audible voice.

Giles wasn't sure what to say, how to let her know that he didn't mind (well except for the fright and the horror he had experienced – that he could live without), how to make her see that he wouldn't abandon her because of that, that he wouldn't shy away from her because of that, that he loved her despite that... or possibly even more because of that...

"What are you thinking?" She asked, and he saw a trace of fear in her eyes as he wasn't replying. He guessed that she was worried that he in fact might have been discouraged, scared away or worse – appalled by what he just had to witness again.

He turned to her and smiled, before placing a hand on her cheek to stroke it with his thumb and Helen felt her limbs going foamy again, though this time for reasons other than the misfortunate apparition. "How little you know me, silly," he said once again in this warm, soothing voice that made all her worries appear stupid and go away momentarily.

Then he suddenly got up to his feet and she looked at him in surprise. "Now," he said, looking around him, "I remember last time I saw a telephone here somewhere..."

"A phone? I very much doubt that," Helen replied.

"No, I'm quite certain," Giles said thoughtfully and walked across the living room to see into the hall, "ah! There!"

"He never told me he's got one," Helen remarked.

"I'll try to organize us some plane tickets from here back to Sunnydale."

"But – shouldn't we go to this Kesmark first?"

"I thought perhaps we both could do with a short break," he said earnestly, stressing the _both_ in the sentence so that she wouldn't think he found her weak or a nuisance. And if he was honest with himself, after all the portkey-travels from this single weekend he really felt he needed some rest.

"But now we're here anyway. Wouldn't it be a waste of time – going back to California only to return in a few days? I mean – how far is the place from here?" She asked.

Giles frowned and paused, then walked back to the sofa, tipping his index finger upon his lips, thinking. "I don't know, 350, perhaps 400 miles... You're right, it would probably be best if we went right away... there is just one problem," he said in a sinister voice.

"Snyder," Helen finished miserably.

"Yes."

"Well, I'd say we call ourselves ill, then take care of him when we're back in case there's trouble," she suggested.

Giles gave her a look that was saying he had little doubt that there _would_ be trouble, but he moved towards the hall and the telephone. "Alright, I'll try to find out how we best get to Kežmarok from here."

"Ok," she nodded and laid herself on the sofa, closing her eyes to rest.

Giles suddenly came to a halt and turned around, wondering. "Where is _here _by the way? I'm afraid I've lost track of where we actually are here with all the trips and excursions ... what would be the nearest larger town from here?"

Helen smiled widely, then answered without opening her eyes: "It's Târgu Mureş, about six miles northwest from here, there should be a train station..."

He then disappeared and spent about an hour on the phone, talking to several travel agencies and tourist information until he finally managed find out the best and most possible convenient route for them to the small Slovak town Kežmarok.

"Right, our train leaves at...," he was saying as he entered the living room, and noticed Helen sleeping. He looked once again at his watch. There was no need to wake her, he decided as he saw they still had a few hours time. He only hoped that Charlie would be back early enough to show them the way to the town of Târgu Mureş. He then called Xander – knowing of all the Scoobies it would cause the boy the least amount of trouble when a school librarian was calling at his home at such a late hour as two in the morning – and asked him to let Snyder's secretary know they were both ill and would not show up for at least two or three days. Fortunately, Xander was too sleepy to argue or nag about their prolonged field trip. When he assured Giles that there had been no new trouble with Angel so far, the latter promised to call soon again, then hung up. He then pulled one of Charlie's books on dragons from a bookshelf and threw himself into an armchair, yet his eyelids were getting heavy and he too soon fell asleep.

Weren't it for Charlie's early return, they would have indeed missed their train. Fortunately the young wizard woke them up in the late afternoon, about an hour before the train would leave, and drove them to the train station on an old car he kept for cases like this when he wanted to visit muggle-inhabited areas.

Their train was already there, Giles hurried to a counter to pick the tickets he had already booked via phone. They said goodbye to Charlie, then boarded the aged train. There was also an air of nostalgia about it, about the old cars and the compartments, looking equal parts shabby and charming. They quickly found their compartment in one of the sleeping cars, which was thankfully empty, at least for now, and made themselves comfortable for the long journey. The first few hours they spent mostly in silence, merely staring out of the window, admiring the spring scenery behind it before the sun would set and it became night, it appeared as if the train was riding through nothing but sheer endless darkness. Around midnight they arrived in Debrecen where the train had a scheduled stopover for an hour and when no one joined them in their compartment Helen decided at last to have some sleep. While Giles left for the bathroom, she took off her sweater and her trousers and tried one of the beds, which looked quite raggedy. Yet when she sat down on it, it was surprisingly comfortable and cushy in a nice way_... very nice indeed_, she thought, _possibly even nice enough to... _

In that moment Giles reentered and she straightened up on the bed immediately, looking flustered. He looked at her curiously and raised a questioning eyebrow when he saw her blushing. He too took off his jacket and hung it up on a hook next to the door before turning back to her. "What are you thinking?" He asked while loosening the knot of his tie, very aware of her fixing him with a puzzled stare.

_That I've never had sex in a sleeping cart... and that also I've never before _thought_ about not having had sex in places... _"Hhh," she cleared her throat and looked away at last, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, "nothing really, just-ah... these beds are rather comfortable, certainly more so than they look."

"Are they?" Giles threw them a skeptical look, but Helen wasn't sure whether it was genuine or whether he was up to something. He came closer and stood still above her for a moment, watching her with an odd expression on his face. Then he smiled his dazing smile and without taking his eyes off her, with one hand he reached to the door and locked it, then with a quick movement he switched off the light, drowning their compartment in almost total darkness...

* * *

><p>When they woke up, it was already light outside. Giles checked his watch – they would reach their final destination in less than an hour. The scenery outside didn't look so very different from Romania, but in the distance they could spot a mountain range and were gazing in amazement at its snowy peaks just as the conductor announced their arrival in Kežmarok.<p>

They had little difficulties in finding the building of the old protestant school where the library was situated. They asked some locals for direction and within half an hour they found themselves standing at the large wooden door of the library that according to the small signboard on the wall would open in exactly ten minutes. They took a short walk around the small church that stood right next to it.

"You know we don't really have to wait," she said in a small voice, "disillusionment charm-"

Giles cut her off. "No," he said strictly. "Don't even think of it. I can't believe you're proposing it after everything," he added, sounding just a little bit angry this time, and he was too. He did not understand how she could be so careless, easily considering doing magic so soon again even when she knew the consequences. Besides there was something in her attitude, her dealing with magic that was disquieting him. She had tried to get rid of it just two years ago, he thought, and it almost killed her, yet here she was, barely able or willing to wash the dishes or do anything else without it.

"Alright, alright," she said to appease him, "I didn't really mean it. I wouldn't want to bleed all over those nice old books now, would I?"

"I'd be really hurt if you thought it's the books I'm concerned about," he said more softly when he eased up a little, but before any of them could say anything else, they heard someone unlocking the front door and they moved towards the library, following an elderly lady, clearly the librarian, upstairs, where the study room was.

Giles introduced them in his best German he could master, for the woman spoke little English. When he looked sideways at Helen, he noticed her eyeing warily at the librarian, as if she was ready to curse her at the slightest sign of disobedience. He explained that they were looking for a section of books that might have been passed here from Alba Iulia in the second half of the 17th century, dealing with the Romani and their traditions. The old librarian laughed heartily as if she had just been told an immensely funny story, and Giles and Helen exchanged baffled looks. The woman then told him in quite a mocking undertone that she hardly knew the title and the content of every single book in here and that he will have to go through the index catalogue and see whether he finds anything. There was something extremely annoying and irritating about her. Helen raised a brow at Giles and he knew just what she would say – _I could have cursed her, but nooo_...

So Giles asked as politely as he could to see the index cards and he and Helen sat down at a table at the far end of the room and began to struggle through the dozens of slim wooden boxes full with old, thin and often almost completely bleached and barely legible cards, again taking down notes with promising titles. Giles soon discovered that among the fifty incunabula the library stored there indeed were two titles mentioning the Romani and the Kalderash.

"You're not supposed to be using a pen here," the voice of the librarian made him jump. He did not notice when she had come to stand behind him, "you're only allowed to write with a pencil... see the sign over there?" She pointed towards the door to which several sheets were stuck, each expressing a different interdiction."

"Oh, I-I am sorry, I didn't-"

"Never been in a library before, have you?" She said and shook her head a little too derisively, offering him her own pencil to use.

Giles pursed his lips and swallowed the initial biting answer he had on his tongue and said "Thank you" instead.

The lady then walked back to her counter and let them work in piece again. Shortly before midday they were through with all the relevant catalogues, having come across about a dozen of titles of interesting sounding books or manuscripts each. They got to their feet and approached the counter to ask the librarian to show them all the titles in question. She put her reading glasses upon her nose and took a closer look at their list, murmuring something in a language they did not understand. After a few minutes – Helen was getting impatient – the librarian finally spoke without taking her eyes of the list: "Well, these three here I cannot give you – they're being restored... and those here," she pointed at two titles Giles had written down, "those you must ask for in a week's advance at least, so come next week and I'll give them to you," she said smugly and Giles looked at Helen, his patience now was fading away too, but the woman continued ignorant of their dark looks: "Those other things I'll hand to you," she said, then looked at her watch, "but you'll have to wait until after my lunchbreak..." Giles stared at her incredulously. "Oh," she narrowed her eyes and looked once again at the list, "and the incunabula are not for public anyway, you won't get to see those," she finished in a sniffy tone.

Now Giles had had it. "Lunchbreak?! What kind of a sodding library is this?!... And why then did you give me the blasted catalogue when it's full of things I'm not allowed to read or see?! That's just... cruel!" He spoke loudly, in his anger he even remembered German swearwords, but the woman only grinned gleefully.

Helen stepped closer and bent over the counter towards her, then said in a low voice in German: "I beg your pardon, Miss, but you're not having any lunch-break until we've got what we came for."

The librarian gave her an odd look and laughed, clearly she found Helen a little crazy, and Giles had to admit that she sounded far from threatening. When Helen turned to him, her eyes were pleading for permission.

For a brief moment he looked stubborn, but as he caught just another sneering expression on the librarian's face, he said in resignation: "Oh..., alright, just-uh... curse her!"

"_Confundo_," Helen shot and immediately a look of surprise appeared on the woman's face. Giles tore his notes out of her hands, while she was gazing at them blankly. They both walked to the door, and in the doorway Helen turned around, waving her wand at the old librarian, murmuring "_Obliviscere_", and shut the door behind them.

"What now?" Giles asked somewhat helplessly as they found themselves standing in the corridor, looking around.

"Hm, I say we start looking..." She said sounding optimistic, "we know the signatories, the shelfmarks after all, right? Now we only need to find the-ah..."

"Shelves?" Giles finished gloomily.

"The shelves, right." She took a look to her right, then to her left, there were four rooms on this floor and a wide wooden staircase indicating that there was more upstairs. She walked confidently to the first door on her left, whispered "_Alohomora_," before pushing the doorknob and entering. Giles followed her hesitantly and kept looking over his shoulder.

"What are you doing? What if someone comes here? What if she comes in to fetch some books for other visitors?" He asked in a whisper.

"Rupert, there is no one in here, and I bet people steer clear of this place given that horrid person that calls herself librarian... I doubt anyone comes here if they can avoid it, that woman is deterrent enough... and even if someone came – which I doubt very much – I'll put a spell on them, only if necessary of course," she assured him and locked the door again from the inside. Only now they took a closer look at where they were standing. It was a large room with very high walls, there were high bookracks with glass doors lining each of them and reaching up to the ceiling, all bent under the weight of thousands of books. The upper shelves were so high that neither of them could read the shelfmarks on the books, but there was a leader in one corner. Helen could literally see how Giles began to mellow at the sight of all the old volumes, pushing aside everything else, any other thought. He walked across the room towards one of the large glass cabinets. Helen unlocked it with her wand and as she swung the glass door open, Giles took a deep breath relishing the smell of the ancient musty pages.

They were browsing room after room without success, then on the upper floor they finally found a small glass cabinet with the very incunabula Giles was putting such high hopes into. Helen once again unlocked it and Giles opened it with reverence. He quickly skimmed the signatories and soon found what he was looking for – two old prints from 1490, one in old Romanian, one in Latin, both dealing with rituals and ceremonies of the Romani people.

"And? Are they any good?" She asked after a while during which Giles was thoughtfully browsing in the _Ritūs et Ceremoniae Zingarorum ut Caldararorum_.

"Hm? I'm not entirely sure... but it looks like-," he paused abruptly, staring at one caption in the middle of the book saying _Ritūs restaurationis_.

Helen looked over his shoulder at those same letters. "Score?" She asked full of hope.

Giles slowly turned around. "Could be."

After a short discussion about how they should deal with the two old prints, they agreed that the local library didn't really have any need for them just as any of its visitors could not benefit from seeing them since according to the librarian all the incunabula were not accessible to public. And so Helen and Giles decided they could just as well take these precious books with them without much remorse. Giles was aware that such reasoning was perhaps a tad arrogant, but on the other hand he told himself in order to quiet down his conscience that these books would never get to be really valued and appreciated _here _by anyone, while they certainly were valuable enough to the Scoobies, which would sanctify "borrowing" them just enough.

So Giles placed the two small, yet heavy booklets into the pockets of his jacket and they managed to leave the building unnoticed by anyone, Helen seemed to have been right – no one ever came here. It was late afternoon and they hurried back to the railway station. They were to take a train to Vienna – the nearest major airport, from where they hoped to catch a flight to LA as soon as possible.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thank you for reading. I have a slight headache about this one, though I'm glad to be posting so soon, while rereading I had the feeling the two might be stepping out of character here and there, while I was trying too much with the funny. Well, I hope it wasn't too crazy, but let me know. Though I intend a short break in Vienna in the next one – to fulfill certain dreams from the past you might remember ;) – I will fly them back to Sunnydale right afterwards I promise. I don't think it's a good idea leaving Buffy alone for too long, not with bad Angel around anyway.<em>

_Please review, comment, emend, pm, let me know what you (don't) like. _


	41. Chapter 41: Viennese Interlude

Chapter 41

Viennese Interlude

_AN: Once again forgive the late- and the shortness. There is simply too much work on my head right now. Nevertheless I hope you'll enjoy, this one was a real pain to write, I almost had it finished the other day, when I realized... never mind. Just – don't take it too seriously, I know it's a bit phony._

_Also, there are some allusions to chapter 8 in here, you might want to re-read it, so that it makes more sense :) i realize it's over a year since I had published that one._

_Thank you for the last reviews, I was glad to read you found Giles being Giles alright._

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><p>They arrived at Vienna-airport around half past ten and as it happened the last plane to LA for the day was just taxiing towards the take-off runways. At a counter they were told that the next free flight would be tomorrow in the early afternoon, the earlier two leaving in the morning being fully booked. Giles sighed exasperated, then bought two tickets for them – they didn't really have any other options but to spend a night in Vienna. The airport employee was sympathetic and at least recommended them a hotel in the city and was even kind enough to call in for them and make a reservation.<p>

They quickly did some necessary shopping at the airport-stores before those would close, then took a cab back to the city centre and about half an hour later arrived at the Hotel Kärntnerhof.

"_Grüß Gott_!" A handsome blond receptionist greeted them, "Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Giles, I presume?"

Giles and Helen looked at her confused at first, both taken aback and unsure for a brief moment how to react, but as Giles turned at Helen, she merely shrugged and put on an innocent face, shaking off the decision and making clear it was up to him whether he'd emend it or not. He cleared his throat nervously before deciding not to lose time with unnecessary explanations: "Uh-yes, yes-uh... that would be us..."

"You're lucky, it was our last suite," the receptionist said, "and accidentally it's one of our nicest, in the attic storey, with a lovely view too," she continued while she was filling out some papers.

Giles smiled politely, but he didn't really care about the view right now. Apart from the fact that it was night and they would leave in the early morning he thought he might have appreciated such things if they were on a real holiday, but given that this was a forced and unwanted stopover he found himself rather indifferent about them.

And so he even unlocked the door to their large suite rather absentmindedly, turned on the light and proceeded to the bed without taking much notice of the room itself, so that also Helen's open mouth and amazed gaze were lost on him. After a few steps she came to an abrupt halt when she spotted the familiar coffee table. And when her eyes wandered away from it, they caught the sight of another familiar item, one that made her blush and that even startled her. It was the very white rug from her Vienna-dream, the very same rug on which Giles and her...

_This is so creepy_, she thought and it gave her goose-bumps momentarily... _and also kind of promising_... she raised her head and watched Giles thoughtfully for a brief moment. He just took off his jacket and threw it on an armchair and was slowly loosening his tie, staring focused at one of the two old books which he had laid open on the bed. His lips were moving imperceptibly as he was reading the lines in Latin. As if he sensed her intense stare his head suddenly spun around and he looked at her curiously.

"Is something wrong?" He asked.

Helen felt sudden heat overcoming her, as he – having finally rid himself of his tie – slowly walked towards her.

She looked once again at the small carpet and at the coffee table, they looked every inch the same as she could remember them from the dream. She shivered at the strangeness of the whole thing – it seemed impossible, surreal, uncanny. "If I tell you something-ah... strange... will you promise not to laugh? Nor shake your head in disbelief and find me mental?"

"Alright," he agreed when he came to stand in front of her.

She gave him a quizzical look as if hesitating one last time, then spoke: "It's been over a year... when I had a-... ahm...," she turned even more red, which seemed to amuse him for some reason, "I had a dream..." And she began telling him, utterly flustered, about the night when she dreamed of the two of them being secret agents and meeting in an apartment in Vienna and making love at last. As she was talking, addressing nervously rather his chest, occasionally raising her eyes at him sheepishly, afraid of his reaction, she was hardly taking notice that he slowly began to undress her. First he gently took off her cord jacket, then loosened the scarf that was wrapped around her neck and with a soft movement he pulled on it, then threw it on the bed. "... and you see after that I thought I wouldn't be able to look into your eyes," she was finishing her story, "which... with the whole Darla and Angel thing came very-ah... unhandy... did I say how sorry again I am because of that?... But fortunately it all turned out well in the end... and now... here we are..." She paused and her eyes began to follow the movements of his fingers as he raised his hands towards her neck and started opening the buttons on her blouse.

"Hm,... and I always wondered how that dream started...," she muttered still fixing his hands with her eyes.

He bent down and kissed her, slipping the open blouse off her shoulders at the same time.

...

Some hour later they were lying on the white cuddly carpet, covered with a blanket they had pulled down from the sofa, enclosed in each other's arms. Helen's mind was just marveling at how amazing the previous moments were, feeling slightly silly about making comparisons with a dream, only to come to the simple, at the first sight perhaps astonishing conclusion for her that no dream – no matter how perfect it was – could be preferable to any reality, even one on the Hellmouth, when Giles was in it. And she laughed inwardly at the corniness of her thoughts.

"Did you ever dreamed of me then?" She asked after a while. Though she was half asleep, for some reason she was desperate to stay awake, even if it meant asking oafish questions.

"Of course," came the muffled reply.

"You did?" She sounded surprised now.

"I am a man," he said as if that was explanation enough.

"What were they like? The dreams?" She asked and Giles wondered for a moment whether she was really as naïve and innocent as she sounded right now.

He cleared his throat. "Hh, I-uh... think very-uh... _vivid_-uh... would be the word...," he stammered in a low voice, then actually heard her smile.

She seemed happy and pleased with all this and closed her eyes at last.

* * *

><p>"Have you been to Vienna before?" She asked him after they both woke up in bed strangely early in the morning, her head resting on his chest, her eyes gazing at the stucco decorations on the ceiling. It turned out the receptionist wasn't overpraising, it surely was a gorgeous room. The sun had yet to rise, they still had time before they could go for breakfast, yet neither of them seemed to be able to sleep anymore, despite the strains of the past days and all the travelling.<p>

"Yes, but it was long ago...," he answered.

"Oh, don't tell me," she closed her eyes and pretended to be thinking hard, "you've been to the-eh... _library_."

"H-how did you know-?" He didn't realize at once that she was jesting.

"Weell, I guessed," she said smugly, but grinned afterwards.

"Very funny," he replied sarcastically. "They actually have a very decent library here, with a beautiful baroque hall... and a good collection all in all, we should go see it in the morning."

She sat up and turned to him, looking like a beaten puppy. "Rupert, I love books, I really do. But there are limits, and when it comes to the past few days there's only so many books I can look at."

"Alright, then not," he said sounding a little disappointed. "They have some beautiful frescoes in there too, you could look at those," he murmured quietly in a last attempt to persuade her.

She glowered at him, but before he could say anything else to his or the library's defense, a sudden fond smile flashed over her face and she leant over to him and kissed him.

...

"You never been to Vienna before?" Giles returned the question some half an hour later. The sun was about to rise soon, the streets down behind the window were getting noisier.

"No," she replied dozily, the fatigue reached her anew. "I mean not while awake... But I always wanted to, my parents had promised to take me after we had watched _Sissi _on our new telly... it was the first film I've seen," she smiled and closed her eyes again, "and I remember what followed was the worst week of my life."

Giles looked down at her questioningly.

"I wanted to meet her of course, you know, the beautiful empress with all the nice gowns and the pretty hairdo... and then my parents told me that she was dead," she said dryly. "And worse – the woman in the film wasn't her, but some Romy Schneider, an actress," Helen spoke in an exaggerated way, but Giles could imagine what a shock that had to be for a child, "I was four. I did not understand at all why anyone would do something like that – dress up like someone else and then act to be someone else... I was devastated... it was truly the most grievous time in my life," she said slowly and put on a serious sad face.

"That must have been-uh... tough," Giles nodded, his mouth twitching into a smile.

"It was," she nodded in earnest. "After that my parents gave the telly away."

After breakfast Giles suggested they simply go for an unpretentious walk through the streets of Vienna, maybe have some early lunch before they would go to the airport.

"So what were you looking for in the local library? When was it?" She asked as they crossed the street leading from their hotel in the direction of the Danube river.

"It was-uh... some eight-ten years ago, some research... there were rumours about an old vampire ravaging in London, a-a count-uh something or other, I forgot his name... he was close to the Viennese imperial court at the begin of the 18th century, before he was sired, and I was sent by the council to find out more about his early-uh... I mean his human life in the local archives and in the library, to learn what he was like and what he might have wanted in London then..."

They found themselves standing at the entrance of an imposing old Greek church and since they didn't really have any set destination they decided to go in and have a look. Giles stopped in the small entrance to read some signs on the wall while Helen walked further into the dark church. Only in the very middle of the wide interior the sun shining through an open side window was creating a thin strip of daylight. All of a sudden organ music started to play that startled them both for a moment, but then they continued in their explorings.

"Helen, imagine there's-," Giles – his voice all excitement – was just about to tell Helen that there was supposed to be a large Greek library above the church, yet when he turned around she was nowhere to be seen. He frowned, then slowly moved towards the altar. The music was still playing, it sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it. He perceived quiet voices from one of the dark corners and heard Helen say:

"It is beautiful, really, I've never heard of an organ-arrangement before, but I must say, it sounds-ah... perfect, almost too perfect," she said laughing, "as if it was always meant to be heard in this way... sort of-ah... divine if I may say so here in this place, almost unearthly."

And then another voice answered that was unknown to Giles, yet whose sound for some reason caused a cold sweat running down his back. It was sleek and clear... too clear, he thought, sharp even, almost like the edge of a knife: "Thank you, madam, I'm glad you like it, we-eh... we have a new-ehm... organist, he'll be delighted to hear it."

Again Giles furrowed his brows, something deep down in his brain was telling him that there was something wrong here, something so trivial that he should know what it was. He could at last distinguish the two dark figures, the smaller one of Helen and a tall, thin one of a man.

"I'm sure even Satie would be thrilled if he could hear his piece played like this, the chords filling this place so... gracefully, one truly feels the reverence of it even better, wouldn't you say?" Helen said happily and unwillingly Giles had to smile at the almost childlike elation that always came through in her voice when she spoke of music. He noticed the man stepping even closer to her now and he sped up. The sound of his steps made Helen and the unknown man turn around, the looks in their eyes couldn't be more contrary. Helen's eyes were beaming as she whispered: "Isn't it stunning?... It's Satie, _Prélude de la porte_, only I've never heard it on an organ and this gentleman just told me that their new organist arranged it himself."

The man managed to hide his initial bewilderment, annoyance even at Giles' appearance, and gave a short polite nod now.

"Did he?" Giles asked in a voice colder than he had intended, because Helen shot him a quick confused look as he came closer and placed one hand under her elbow. He eyed the man from top to bottom. Despite the darkness they were drowned in Giles observed the very pale skin and the dark, almost pointy eyes of the blond man.

The man smiled a sleazy smile before replying: "Yes, he did. Would you like to meet him?"

Before Giles could say anything, the blond said loudly: "Hector? These nice people would like to make your acquaintance, they're enchanted by your play, they look like they have a good-eh... taste."

The organ music stopped abruptly and Giles froze at the last remark, did he just merely imagine it or had there indeed appeared a disturbing glisten in the man's eyes at those words? He couldn't tell. Then he felt his heartbeat getting faster as footsteps echoed through the wide shadowy space of the church. He was almost sure now. Subconsciously he pulled Helen an inch behind himself.

"I'm Rupert Giles by the way," he said and stretched out his hand to get one last piece of evidence.

The tall blond looked at him awkwardly, but then gave him his icy hand to shake as if it wouldn't matter anything. "Christophe... Burkhardt," he said and Giles swallowed dryly, then made a step backwards, but he could hear the other pair of footsteps descending the stairs somewhere close behind them.

"Is-uh... is the organist... a friend... of yours?" He asked, trying to sound casual while with sidelooks he was scanning their surroundings for possible weapons, or escape ways.

Helen seemed merely confused by the odd exchange and was already turning around, excited to meet the talented organ player, when Giles said to her in a quiet voice: "Give me your wand."

"What?" She asked and looked at him perplexed.

"Your wand," he hissed and turned around to see the marble gleeful grinning face of the other man.

Helen didn't understand and was a little taken aback by Giles' behaviour, but nevertheless slipped her hand into the pocket of her trousers and took out her wand. Giles grabbed it from her hand and pointed it at the newcomer who now stood right in front of them and was raising a hand in a strange manner, which Helen still mistakenly thought would be an offer to a handshake.

"Rupert, what-," she asked, when suddenly in a surprisingly swift movement Giles plunged the wand with his whole force into the man's chest.

"Oh my god!" She cried out when the man fell on the ground, his eyes wide opened, filled with astonishment, Helen's wand sticking out of his chest, and yet no blood appeared around it. "What have you done-"

And then several things happened at the same time. While the man Giles had stabbed short turned into dust and so Helen's wand hit the stony ground with a tapping noise, the blond one grabbed Helen, who was still staring incredulously and with open mouth at the sparkling powdery remains of the organist, by the neck and his face turned into its vampire features. Giles quickly bent down to pick the wand, but Helen, having recovered from the first shock, whispered: "_Levicorpus_," and the vampire flew through the air and landed hard on his back in the middle of the church where the rays of the April sun hit him. Helen turned away, but closed her eyes nevertheless, as they heard a high pitched scream when the vampire burnt and perished.

For a short moment none of them was able to speak, Helen kept staring at the spot where the other vampire laid just a moment ago, stabbed with her wand. Then she whispered at last in a low, graveled voice, as if she was still trying to process what just happened: "We killed their organist," and she raised her head at him.

There was something in his eyes, a look of expectation as he raised one brow at her, indulgently, as if waiting for her to reach a certain point in her string of thoughts, and then she understood. "Oh... And there are... no organs in orthodox churches," she said slowly in a dry voice, "hence..."

"...hence no organists," Giles finished and came closer to her.

"Oh, Merlin," Helen sighed, feeling like a fool, "but how did they-... with no organ... I mean did you _hear_ the music? It was... I haven't heard anything as beautiful in a long time, it was... so pure, so perfect..."

Giles saw again the dreamy expression on her face. "It was, but as you said to the one vampire before, it was too perfect to be real... I don't know how they produced the sound, but-uh... I'm guessing they used the music to allure some-uh... tourists in... and then-uh..."

"But isn't a church somewhat... I don't know... a weird, unnatural environment for vampires?"

"It should be. But after all our experiences I'm beginning to think it is a myth."

"Yes," she nodded thoughtfully, "I dread to think... if it wasn't for you... I mean if we were some ordinary muggles, with no knowledge of vampires, then they..." She shrugged at the thought.

"I _am_ an ordinary muggle," Giles objected amused.

"No you're not," she stated, "you're very far from ordinary," she said and blushed a little, then saw her wand in his hand and smiled: "And you're not really a muggle either judging by how skillfully you just used that wand to save our lives."

He returned a bashful smile, then handed her back her wand and they slowly walked out of the old church.

"Still," she said about an hour later when they were sitting in a café near the National Library, "say what you will, but I doubt I'll ever hear Satie played in such a breathtaking and heart-stopping way... pity I didn't record it..." She paused as she noticed his twitching lips. "What?"

"Nothing, only that... apart from your-uh... very accurate choice of words – _heart-stopping_ it almost was – I-uh... was just thinking..."

They were shortly interrupted by a typical Viennese waiter, who glared at them disapprovingly when they both ordered two cups of tea instead of coffee. _Diese Briten_.

"Thinking what?" Helen asked, when they were alone again.

Giles looked at her in this fond way, with a kind of an enamoured fascination and amazement showing in his expression. "I was just thinking that if _books_ are – as people often tell me – what is going to kill _me_ one day, then _music_ will certainly be _your_ doom," he said warmly and shook his head slightly while stroking over her hand.

"Oh," she understood and smiled a bit embarrassed. He was right. When it came to hearing nice music she was just like Giles and the books – her reason bid farewell and she forgot everything else around, fully ignorant of any alarming signs.

* * *

><p>After a nice walk through the city of Vienna and a proper Wiener schnitzel for lunch they both finally made for the airport. During the long thirteen hours of flight Helen's head dropped on Giles's shoulder at some point, but he himself didn't think of sleeping for a moment. Already while waiting at the gate Helen had noticed him enter the full-research-mode which didn't leave him since then. So while she was contentedly asleep in the aisle seat, Giles had the two books they had acquired in Kezmarok the day before lay open on the folding table of his seat, first comparing the Latin and the old Romanian print, then he took out his pocket notebook and began to translate the latin chapter on the rituals of restorations, and got only interrupted once by the stewardess asking him whether she should bring a blanket for his wife.<p>

He looked up at her a little unfocussed, and her question seemed to have reached him seconds later. He opened his mouth, then looked at Helen, then back at the stewardess, and nodded with a polite smile. "Yes, that would be very kind of you." The stewardess bowed and disappeared to fetch the small blanket. When he looked again down at Helen's face he could have sworn he saw a brief smile fly over her face.

* * *

><p>It was late evening when they finally arrived in Sunnydale. Giles had called the Scoobies from the airport and asked them to meet them in the library to have a quick briefing, in order to find out whether there had been any troubles in Sunnydale during their short absence, what was new, and whether Buffy had encountered anything out of the ordinary during her patrols. Even though he had asked her to stay out of the streets for the time he and Helen were gone, meanwhile he wasn't that naïve to assume she would actually obey.<p>

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thank you for reading, I'm aware this wasn't exactly a gem of writing, I strongly feel I will have to and want to rewrite it. It was supposed to be quite different, but then at some point I remembered that there indeed aren't any organs in Greek churches :) and that being the case, I had to invent the two vampire guys and got sidetracked again...<em>

_Anyway, thanks for bearing with me for so long. Sorry for not making the "..."parts more explicit, no time for that plus I don't think I write those well, but, maybe later._

_Still, pls. comment, review, ask, share your opinions, I love reading any thoughts._


	42. Chap 42: Something old and something new

Chapter 42

**Something old and something new**

_AN: A short update. The title is... well, don't think too much about it._

* * *

><p>"Did you see the dragon?" Willow jumped off the table as Giles and Helen entered the library.<p>

Giles raised his brows, bemused at first at what she was talking about, and when he remembered he thought that their dragon-sighting now appeared to him like it had happened years ago, although it was only three days in fact.

"Uh-yes," he replied, "yes, we did." But to Willow's disappointment he wouldn't say more about it.

"Did you take any pictures?" She tried again.

"Hm?" Giles looked at her again feeling distracted as he walked towards the main table and laid the two old incunabula on it.

Xander grinned. "See, Will? I told ya' it was just a tale with the dragons... a cover-up for other things."

But Willow's mind now was elsewhere too as she seized the Latin book that Giles just brought.

The latter ignored Xander's remark and addressed Buffy: "Was there anything-uh... I should know of? Any troubles with-uh... Spike and the-uh...others?" He asked, leaving out Angel's name and wondering at the same time how Buffy was dealing now, more than two months later after Angel's transformation.

"No," she said in a bored voice, which he interpreted as a good sign, "nothing. I've dusted two vamps on the weekend, but I don't think they belonged to Spike, they were lurking around the bronze, looking for someone to eat."

Giles murmured something in approval, but sounded rather absent, and disappeared in his office where they heard him rustling and rummaging through some papers and books. He returned with a few books and some of his own older notes in his hands and laid them on the table next to where Willow was already deepened in the lecture of the Latin text on Kalderash' rites.

Buffy stared from her best friend to her watcher incredulously, but Helen prevented her from saying anything when she started explaining: "We-eh... we found a couple of things that could bring us forward," she pointed at the two books that were now being studied thoroughly by Giles and Willow. "There are some passages on rituals of restoration that might answer some of our questions and-eh... shed more light on the curse," she added quietly. They still hadn't talked about whether Angel should be cursed again as they knew little about how to do it or whether it was possible at all. Yet should these old records prove to be hiding the necessary knowledge, they would soon have to address the topic.

Helen then described to Buffy and Xander shortly what their trip had been like and after that Buffy glanced up again towards Giles and Willow, stating: "Looks like the rest of us are pretty much waste here," and she grabbed her bag from the table, turning to Xander, "so Giles, if you don't mind I'll go home. I'll do a quick sweep over the cemeteries on my way, just to check, and then I'll see you tomorrow."

Giles didn't raise his eyes from the Romanian book when he murmured to answer: "Mhm, yes, alright, but be careful please, and don't be out too long."

"Will, are you coming?" Xander asked.

Willow seemed only very unwillingly to break away from her reading, but then after a quick look at her watch she too seized her backpack and followed her two friends out of the library after saying Good night to Giles and Helen.

When they were gone Helen came closer to stand behind Giles and put a hand on his shoulder, looking over it at his notes. She frowned when she realized something as her eyes wandered from his notes over to the text of the book in front of him: "I didn't know you can read Old Romanian..."

"Hm?" He was tipping his fingers on some old notes of his as if he was comparing something, then took another book in his hands, one that Helen recognized was a history of Kalderash in modern Romanian.

"When did you learn Old Romanian?"

"Oh, I didn't really," he replied casually, "but I was working through a couple of manuscripts lately that were all 16th century Romanian...," he paused and Helen saw his eyes skipping from one book to another, then back to his older notes, before he wrote down something, "I think I'm catching on it... though this print – which just between the two us would appear to be the oldest written text in Romanian language to my knowledge -," he pointed at the incunabula from Kezmarok, "is slightly more difficult as it seems... since it's a bit older, but thankfully the language did not change so much in those hundred years... still, it'll take some time to translate... I'm comparing the words, the phrasings and their meanings..."

Helen shook her head amazed. This was Giles – learning a whole new language within a few weeks by simply reading a couple of old books in it, after having tenaciously refused to accept that he would not understand them. Helen noticed a Romanian dictionary lying on the table, but Giles didn't seem to need it anymore. She smiled fondly and – if possible – found him now more endearing than ever. In a way, this ingenious side of him was quite a turn-on.

He suddenly raised his head and looked at the clock on the wall. "It's late, we should go. We best have a good sleep before we face Snyder tomorrow," he said gloomily, then got up and collected the papers to put them back into his office.

When they arrived at Giles' apartment, Helen unlocked the door, entered, then stopped abruptly so that Giles almost bumped into her: "I say what the-" She exclaimed and pulled out her wand.

There was something different about the large living room compared to before they had left it for the second time two days ago. First thing that occurred to Helen was that someone had moved the furniture, because although everything seemed to be there, the things were all slightly displaced, beginning with Giles' small desk, the large armchair, the sofa and the coffee-table... Helen's eyes followed the shifted objects towards the fireplace and the windows at both its sides, and there she gasped anew. Beneath the left window where a small bookshelf and an armchair used to be now stood a black magnificent upright piano, the dark varnish shining, Helen's heart jumped at the sight of its elegance and simple beauty. Giles came to stand next to her, he was still looking around him a little distracted, then noticed Helen's widened eyes. "What is it?"

Instead of answering she merely raised her arm and speechless pointed at the corner and the new instrument that was filling it in a way as if it had always belonged there, as if it was well aware of the grace and the splendour it was adding to the whole room. Only now Giles saw it too and his expression suddenly lightened up. He looked again down at Helen and smiled complacently.

"Happy birthday," he said.

She turned at him, frowning. "What-... How-... Why...?" She seemed unable to utter any whole sentence for a moment, while Giles moved through the room to adjust the other furniture that had been moved by the delivery men.

"I-it's not my birthday," she finally said in a stump voice and slowly walked towards the piano, as if anxious that it would disappear if she made a too rash movement, "it's in five weeks."

Giles watched her amused. He would have to thank Xander tomorrow for letting the delivery people in. "I know. Consider it an early birthday present then," he said.

"Giles, that's-," she turned at him with an odd look on her face. She couldn't believe it and was trying to sort out her thoughts as to what it all meant, for her, for him, for the both of them that he should give her something like this. To someone else perhaps it would seem a very nice present, a very expensive one and therefore of course a lovely one. Yet to Helen who needed the play – and occasionally she felt she needed it almost like the air to breathe, especially at times of troubles of all sorts - it meant a lot more, and a lot more than she could put into words. She had been complaining to Giles during the past weeks about how much she missed it, and how she was aching for being able to play again. Every now and then she sneaked into the school auditorium in the evening and played the old completely off-tune school piano, but it wasn't the same, it didn't feel comfortable and she feared constantly that someone would come in, because even though it was nothing illegal, in a way she considered playing something very intimate and dreaded the thought of being "caught" by anyone, or even overheard by unwanted listeners. She thought she would buy a new piano eventually or ask someone to repair hers when she got more time to look into it, when the whole Angel-business would be over. Never would she have thought that Giles would actually get her one. And a _Bösendorfer_ on top of it all. And she knew too that – this being Giles – it must have cost him a lot of time (not to speak of money and she didn't even dare to estimate how expensive it must have been), because he wasn't one who'd buy anything lightly. She imagined him beginning a thorough and extensive research on all piano manufacturers probably weeks ago, before carefully organizing the actual purchase. To sum it up – it was in every way a most extraordinary gift.

Giles on his part, although very pleased with himself and that he again managed to surprise her, was also a little anxious about her reaction, especially about the fact that he had let the piano be brought into his apartment, not into her house. He wondered if she wouldn't find it somewhat pretentious. But when he said so to her, emphasizing that should she wish so, he would let it move to her house and that he by no means meant to tie her even more to his place with this, she smiled at last, grasped the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer into a kiss, whispering: "As if I ever wanted to leave here..."

"So you like it?" Giles asked after a while. "It's a little late to play I'm afraid, the neighbours woud probably frown upon it... a-and I know you were used to yours, and I was thinking initially of getting the same one or having yours repaired... but then I realized that a grand piano wouldn't fit in here anyway, so...," he was explaining, while she carefully opened the key lid. At the sight of the gleaming white and black keys her heart jumped up happily in anticipation. She looked desperately at the clock, but it was indeed too late now to have a try. She brushed fondly with her hand over the keys, before closing the lid again. Then she turned back at him.

"Uhm... I-ah...," she smiled taken aback, once again having troubles to put her thoughts into words, "saying thank you seems pretty-ah... deficient... I don't know what to say really... apart from... are you sure you thought this through? That once it's here I might actually _play _it?"

"Well, that-uh... _was_ the main purpose of buying it really," he replied half-seriously.

They turned in soon afterwards and both fell asleep, tired and glad to be home in their own bed again.

_Helen was frantically looking around her, trying to figure out how she got here. She was standing in Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts. Though it was night and the candles and lights were off, she could distinguish all the familiar things, the phoenix stand, the bookracks along the walls, the round staircase leading to a sort of a balcony where the former headmaster used to keep all sorts of wizarding equipment. _

_She saw some movement there upstairs and then the tall thin figure of Dumbledore himself appeared from a shadow. He slowly walked towards the railing, then stood still looking down at her. A moan of pain sounded from somewhere behind him and Helen tilted her head to see past him. She felt the blood freeze in her veins as the by now only too familiar picture came into her sight: Giles was sitting there on a chair with his hands tied at his back, the Asian painting with the cherry tree and a small figure riding on a horse hung on the wall behind him. She was staring wordlessly at him, she could feel Dumbledore's eyes fixing her. When she suddenly made a step towards the stairs, the grey haired man said in his deep, old voice, sounding ever so wise: "You are not supposed to be here." _

_She stood there at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, those words disturbed her, she couldn't say from his tone what he meant. Was it a mere statement, a threat, or a belated reproach?_

_"Helen-" She heard him say, but he got interrupted by a wild laughter coming from the corner behind Giles._

_Dumbledore disappeared as Bellatrix strolled on the scene, her features again distorted into her vampire-self. Their surroundings now changed too and suddenly they were standing in a dark room that resembled the one from Helen's previous dreams. Bellatrix sunk her teeth into Giles' throat and when Helen ran towards her to push her away she merely waved her wand at her and Helen felt immediately the pangs of the cruciatus curse hit her._

_After what seemed to her like the eternity the pain stopped and someone had lifted her up, a tall male figure whose face she couldn't see. And while Bellatrix kept drinking Giles' blood, Helen could hear Dumbledore's astounded voice whisper: "So there is an eighth one..," but the headmaster was nowhere to be seen. The stranger on the other hand walked over to Bellatrix and with a short wave of his hand made her stand up. When Bellatrix now turned at him, her eyes widened and filled with what Helen could only describe as perverted reverence, but before Bella could say anything, the man pushed her aside and stood in front of Giles. Helen's heartbeat got even faster when the man raised his wand, pointed it at Giles and hissed "Avada Kedavra!" In the flash of the green light that illuminated the room for a second Helen could see the face of the man, yet she did not recognize it. In the same moment Giles' chest rose, he had raised his head for a split of a second as the spell hit him, his eyes widened briefly before the light in them expired and his head fell back onto his chest. _

_Helen found herself unable to move. She merely stared at Giles' lifeless body sunken down on the chair. The unknown man meanwhile disappeared along with Bellatrix. Helen did not notice Severus standing in a far corner of the room now, leaning casually against the wall. The sudden sound of his dark voice startled her: "We both seem to have... the unique... gift... of bringing doom upon those few we've manage to care about... do you ever wonder why that is?" Though he spoke slowly in a clear, yet quiet tone, being his usual sharp, bitter cynical self, to Helen his words sounded as awful as if bawled in a hideous clamour. _

_She was shivering now on her whole body and yet when her head spun around to face Severus, he wasn't there anymore, instead again the tall grey haired figure of Albus Dumbledore was approaching her. He was smiling at her, it was this faint, warm, knowing smile, and for a moment an irrational hope flared up in Helen that he would bring Giles back. Dumbledore saw it in her eyes and he stopped and shook his head sadly. "You wouldn't want that for him too." She froze after a second when she thought she understood what he was insinuating. "I know that this time, when the time comes you will do the right thing." He then turned at Giles and before she could stop him, he waved his blackened injured hand and Giles' dead body vanished. Only now she found her voice and wanted to scream._

She woke up at her own quiet moan, her eyes shot open and it took her a few moments to realize where she was. She looked next to her and found Giles sleeping contentedly, his chest rising and falling in a slow, calm pace. Rather subconsciously her eyes wandered over his neck, looking for any traces of vampire bits, and when she realized what she was doing, she shook her head over her silliness. But she was still shivering, her heart pulsing fast and the feelings from that awful nightmare wouldn't leave her so soon she feared. She looked at the alarmclock, it was five in the morning, Giles wouldn't be up for another two hours, but she doubted she could sleep anymore. She walked downstairs and spotted the new piano, feeling the sudden urge to play. But it was too early. She went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of milk, then sat down at the piano nevertheless, took a sip and laid the glass on the keylid, staring at her own face reflected upon its black varnish. Bits and scenes from the dream were tossing in her mind, she tried to remember what was said by whom, but found that the memories were already beginning to fade and she wasn't sure anymore what happened in the dream and what were her own, real memories... There was Dumbledore, wearing the same robe as during their last conversation at Hogwarts shortly before he died. Helen frowned and stiffened and wrapped her arms around herself tightly in discomfort at the recollection of that horrible evening in Dumbledore's office. She had said awful things to him, she was angry, even now a shiver of fury seized her when she replayed his words _"I know that when the time comes... Helen...you will do the right thing, I've watched you for a couple of years now, I know you will find the courage to. For the greater good."_ She thought she had forgiven him, or had she not?

She didn't know how long she had been staring at the empty glass in front of her, only after what must have been a long while she realized it was light behind the windows. She sighed heavily, then looked at the piano, hesitated for only a split of a second before putting the glass away and opening the keylid at last. Briefly she felt the familiar wave of excitement spreading through her and she smiled. _This is what addicts must feel when they spot their next dose_... With her feet she found the pedals and rather idly struck an aimless series of chords and then without thinking began to play Franck's _Prelude, fugue and variation_, slowly, gently, the first quiet bars almost shyly, but soon she felt the long missing sensation getting hold of her again and it was as if the music was playing itself, flowing from her fingers which seemed to be moving on their own, effortlessly and she seemed to be detached from them, watching them dancing over the keys. She could even close her eyes and let them play, and enjoyed the delightful sound that was filling the room.

Giles woke up at a strange sound, thinking at first that his alarm clock never before woke him with a sound this pleasant. Only then he realized it was the piano downstairs.

As he was getting out of the bed, it occurred to him that he had never before heard her play, this was the first time. It was a piece he had not heard before, so he couldn't really judge whether she was doing well, but there was something about the way she was playing it, delicate and ardent at the same time and yet very soft, it moved him and he couldn't tell why. At hearing it he actually felt his heartbeat getting faster, it was as if the music was going under his skin, in the nicest possible way.

He had heard her talking about it, about such things and feelings, yet he would always nod politely and wonder in silence what she was talking about, because he had never experienced it himself, at least not as intensely as she had or so he thought, not even with Pink Floyd, no... or perhaps yes, in one of their countless rushes during his Ripper-times in London with Ethan, Diedre and the others, but that was very different and mostly owed to additional psychedelics rather than being a genuine musical experience...

He listened briefly, and amazed he marveled at the thought that a sound this beautiful, this smooth could be produced so easily. He had been playing guitar of course all those years ago, and he remembered that he liked it, it was nice and fair, but never beyond that, he couldn't remember it ever being like this, so thrilling, so... stirring even. And he wondered whether he should perhaps try it again and dust off his old guitar.

As he descended the stairs, Helen got startled, she didn't hear him getting up. She turned at him blushing and felt caught as she saw his puzzled stare, before abruptly changing the melancholy tune for Scott Joplin's _Entertainer_. Giles laughed now a little at the well-known jolly music and at Helen's not too serious and exaggerated play. Little did he know that she was trying to cheer up herself rather than him.

When they arrived at school about an hour later, they were unlucky enough to run straight into Snyder in the first corridor. He merely glanced up at them and said somberly: "You two – my office – now."

And there they sat and listened to Snyder's harangue about duty and absences and professional behaviour and what was expected of a teacher in terms of being a role model for the students and how neither of them were acting up to it, but were being selfish instead, consumed with their own private affairs, which he did not care for and which would have to stop or at least they would have to get a grip of them so that those affaires would not interfere with their work and other school-related obligations anymore.

"... the library looks a complete mess...," Snyder was saying, though it sounded more like he was making up things now to make them feel remorseful, because Helen doubted that he ever went to the library.

"You don't know the first thing about a messy library," she said coldly.

Both Snyder and Giles looked at her, Snyder a little surprised while Giles appeared to be scrutinizing her, trying to assess what she was up to.

"Whatever," the principal replied angrily, "to remind you that we are all working here for the greater good..." Helen's head shot up at those words and Snyder paused for a second.

Giles noticed Helen holding her wand in her right hand and nervously, frantically tipping it upon her kneecap, which Snyder could not see from behind his desk. Giles carefully reached out his hand and placed it upon hers to make her calm down, wondering at the same time why she was so edgy.

"... and to offer you a chance to prove that you do care about keeping your jobs I decided...," Snyder continued and Giles' heart sank. This couldn't be good. "... to entrust the running of this year's talent show to you."

There was a heavy silence for a moment. _And the nightmare continues_, Helen thought, while Giles was looking at the principal's face as if waiting for him to say that he did not mean what he said. He couldn't have. When there was something he and Helen did not have time for right now, then it was exactly taking care of another vast school-event. Besides, those always tended to attract trouble and/or end badly. Giles couldn't remember a single large event in the past two years that would go without any casualties.

Finally Snyder lost his patience: "This is where you say _thank you_ and leave," he said crossly and glared at them, expecting them to get up and out of his office.

Helen looked at Giles, her hand that was holding the wand was twitching, but he shook his head imperceptibly, then spoke to Snyder: "Y-you can't be serious..."

"Why not?"

"W-well, after last year's bloodbath... I-I... we would have thought that-that-"

"Those were accidents, terrible, but we won't let them affect us... on the contrary we, or I should say _you_ will show us that the school spirit is strong enough to not get scared off by such things," he said mocking them.

Helen got up to her feet abruptly and leant onto Snyder's desk. "I had a really bad night," she said angrily in a low voice, "so I'll only say this once – I will _not_ run your bloody talent show, you can run it yourself... or maybe you could just make it a one-man performance as you are yourself so brimming over with endless talents..." She made a step back and watching his foaming features she realized that in her own anger she may have gone too far.

"You... are...," Giles could hear Snyder begin in a furious tone and he knew what would follow. Thus his eyes widened when instead of the expected _fired _or _sacked _there was a short pause and then Snyder said in a tone very different to the one he had been using only seconds before: "You're right. It was a stupid idea, I don't know what I was thinking," he said blankly.

Giles frowned, but because of Helen standing in his view with her back turned to him he couldn't see Snyder's face. And then she turned around and at catching a glimpse of the tiny streak of blood beneath her nose he knew.

"Sorry to have bothered you," Snyder added in the same odd dull voice and Helen moved towards the door.

"Don't," she stopped him before he could say anything as they stepped out of the principal's office and she saw the reproval in his eyes. "I didn't have a choice, we'd never get out of it otherwise," she said, sounding still a bit huffish as she walked over to a water fountain to clean her face.

Giles watched her in silence, then decided against further arguing and asked instead, attempting a lighter conversation: "So, was your night really that bad?"

He had thought her to ease up at what seemed to him an innocent enough question, after all he assumed she hadn't meant it literally when she had said that to Snyder, but to his surprise and concern she stiffened and avoided his eyes at first.

"No, not really," she replied evasively, but could feel his piercing glare on her, "well, I-ah... just another bad dream, nothing worth telling really."

"And I thought you got up so early because you couldn't wait to touch the piano," he said casually and at the mention of their latest acquisition Helen looked up at him and actually smiled.

"Well, that too," she said, appeased again by the sudden simple realization of how lucky she was having him.

Being rid of the talent show they could put their energies into reading the two old prints they had brought from their fieldtrip in Europe. By the end of the week Giles managed to translate the first couple of pages of the Old Romanian text, while Willow and Helen worked on the Latin copy in turns, as they both had other duties to attend to.

On Friday afternoon Helen once again passed her work to Willow and went to her house to floo George and the others for their monthly exchange.

However when she sat down in front of her fireplace it was only George's face that greeted her. He explained to her that the others couldn't come, Ron, Hermione and Harry having some other commitment elsewhere and Ginny being ill with a flu.

"I've tried to floo you," George said, "but you're rather hard to reach these days... Are you ever at home at all?" He asked grinning.

"No," she answered curtly, before grinning back and George knew exactly that she was anything but unhappy about her new living arrangements.

"Why don't you two get a floo at Mr. Giles' place? It would be much easier," George suggested.

"Yes, for you to harass us maybe...," she said and glared at him, "... besides Giles doesn't wish to be-eh... connected, and frankly I don't blame him, he wants to keep the little amount on privacy he's still got and I respect that."

"Of course you do," George said nodding in amusement. Then he remembered something: "Oh, oh, Kingsley too has been trying to catch you, he said something about... _Travers_ and _books_ and a _letter_... I really don't know what he was talking about, you best talk to him yourself, I only promised him to let you know if I'd see you."

"Right," Helen muttered looking over at a clock. It was late, it would be around midnight in London now.

"You could try, you know how late he works sometimes," George proposed.

Helen agreed and they said good night, then she threw a handful of new floo powder into the fire and called for Kingsley's office.

"Yes? Who's there?" Kingsley's muffled voice sounded after a moment.

"It's Helen. McGregor."

"Oh, Helen, how nice to hear from you," and his voice got clearer as his face appeared in the fireplace.

"I'm sorry for calling so late, I hope I'm not disturbing you, only George just relayed to me that you had something you wanted to talk over with me," she said.

"Yes, yes, I did. I've got here two letters from Quentin Travers addresses to his cousin in Azkaban..."

"Yes? What does he say?"

"Not a whole lot. It's very meagre, he's asking where the books are and whether they're safe and if he can get them back. Hadn't you told me about those council books I would have absolutely no idea what it's about."

"Hm," Helen said thoughtfully, "and yet it doesn't exactly reveal anything spectacular."

"No. I mean if I were him I'd probably want to have those books back too," Kingsley stated dryly.

"And there was nothing else? Only the two letters?"

"No, Secundus hasn't posted anything and we did not deliver him these. They are some weeks old by now by the way, I wanted to call you earlier, but there was so much going on here that I forgot about it among all the other things... we've been debating over the new Hogwarts staff for the next school year since there've still been a few vacancies we needed to fill at last and that took a lot of time – and hassle and nerves and a few brawls even – so that I was hardly able to take care of anything else," Kingsley complained sounding tired. Helen didn't envy him for still having to clean up the mess that the war and the Death Eaters had left behind.

"New staff? And? Whom did you get?" She asked curiously, remembering that months ago Minerva had again offered her her former history post. She wondered who got it now.

But before Kingsley could reply Helen heard a loud, persistent knock on what she assumed was the door of his office and then Kingsley turned away and spoke to someone: "Alright, tell them I'll be there in a minute, and get them some beer beforehand, you know they're unbearably savvy when they're sober..."

Then he turned back at Helen with an apologetic look: "I'm sorry, I've got to go. I have yet another demand for compensation money on my plate for some atrocities Voldemort had done while he was abroad..." He sighed, then shook his head at the craziness of all the matters he had to deal with. "I'll talk to you soon. Or I'll send those letters to you through someone, you can have a look at them yourself."

"Alright. Thanks, and good night," she waved at him as he nodded in acknowledgement and left.

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><p><em>AN: Thank you very much for staying with me until now – and as always – do review on anything that occurs to you as nice, weird, awful, funny, whatever. Please share your thoughts.<em>


	43. Chapter 43: Becoming Part 3

Chapter 43

Becoming. Part 3

_AN: Hello, dears, terribly long break, I know, sorry doesn't even begin to cover it. I could offer loads of bad and even some really good excuses why it took me so long, but I won't waste your time ;) _

_This chapter is not exactly what I imagined it to be – for starters I originally planned it longer, but then I just decided to skip all the stuff that was in series, you all know that very well I assume, the final episodes of season 2, Becoming, are – to me at least some of the best, so I only referred to those parts that I felt needed a quick refreshing to understand the rest. It is a bit dry this way. But let me know if something remains unclear._

_Not much action here, it's mostly a Giles-insight-chapter, though I'm not sure how it worked out. I wonder if this is really what Giles would be acting like or is it just what I wish for him to act like... hm... share your thoughts in the reviews._

_For anyone who recognizes a few FlashForward-allusions, yess, I confess I watched it over Christmas ('cause – Jack Davenport, yummm :)_

_IMPORTANT PART: I will most probably post the next chapter as a new entry – new story, because this is getting very long and this seems like a good break, so if you're following this, look out for The Third Man II or something. I may post a short note as an update on this one._

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><p>The days were passing now in a fast way, all of the Scoobies were having their hands full with different things, school responsibilities being the least of it, researching, trying to make some sense into the two texts about the curse, and when or if they found themselves having a few moments of piece, the Hellmouth would take care it wouldn't last by making fishmonsters out of the swimm-team or planting a giant bezoar beneath the school. On the Angel-front things were calm, or at least relatively. Buffy would patrol every night, every now and then she would run into Angel who wouldn't miss the chance of dropping a few provocative remarks just before he would leave the fight.<p>

Helen's nightmares were becoming more frequent so that every night she dreaded going to bed, and most of the morning she was unrested and though trying to cheer up, the dream-scenes wouldn't always allow that. She wouldn't say much about it, she didn't want to talk about the nightmares, discuss them in any way, maybe out of some irrational, but understandable fear that that way they will lose any meaning. Yet with the weeks passing Giles came to learn to assess Helen's moods through her playing the piano. Because even if she now and then managed to deceive him and others, to conceal it, then her play would give her away in the end, unmistakably.

She played Joplin's ragtimes when she was happy, jolly, playful even, and it made him smile the way she kept varying those melodies and adding some short witty improvisations of her own to it here and there. Satie usually meant that she was content, if not exactly happy, but calm, tranquil, or able to ease up and she used to play it to calm down and it almost always seemed to work. It was at times when she switched to Franck when he would begin to worry. Then she was troubled, and melancholic, and beyond the consolation that Satie would have offered her. Yet the most alarming stage were the improvisations, when she would put away all the notes and sit down and begin to play what came into her mind, restlessly, almost feverish, as if she was looking for something, searching for a way to tell she didn't even know what, to express what she wasn't able to do with words.

And then things began to roll even faster when Giles was asked to inspect a strange newly found relic at the Sunnydale Museum of Natural History, and within days the world found itself again on the verge of ending. On one night while Buffy went to meet Angel at a cemetery, the others, having finally deciphered the terms of the ritual of restoration, were preparing the ingredients for the spell that Willow volunteered to perform to give Angel his soul back. And though Giles had warned her that attempting such dark magick may open a gate she would not be able to close, and if he was honest he doubted Willow would have power enough to go through with it. She herself was scared on one hand, but on the other confident that she might actually succeed. However they were interrupted by Drusilla and her gang of vampires, who attacked them, killed Kendra, bit Helen, hurt Xander and Willow and kidnapped Giles.

It so happened that both Helen and Giles believed the other dead at a time: Giles, who had been knocked unconscious, came to himself lying on the cold floor of a dark, wide room. Before he would open his eyes, he tried to remember how he got there. The last thing he could recall was that awful fight in the library, Cordelia and Willow running towards the racks at the back, Xander putting up a battle against one of Drusilla's minions... he froze suddenly when the image popped into his mind - of Helen being caught by another vampire, her throat firmly enclosed in its hands, its teeth sinking into it, her eyes closing as she passed away, just before someone hit him on his head.

"Hi, Rupert. I wasn't sure you were gonna wake up. You had me worried," Angelus' voice was now the first thing he heard.

He slowly got up to his feet, though his knees felt weak. "What do you want?" He asked, his face hardened. He had seen Angel many times before, and the vampire hardly looked different than in the months before his transformation, and yet there was something about his bearing that made Giles' stomach turn.

Angelus smiled an unpleasant smile before replying in a tone as if he was stating the obvious: "I wanna torture you..."

Helen woke up in the hospital and Xander told her that Giles disappeared and had most probably been taken by Drusilla and Angel. And then she had this strange, uncomfortable, and only too vivid dream of Giles, being tied up to a chair, and she saw her own face close to his, and saw herself talking to him, only her voice didn't sound like her at all as she spoke _I'll never leave you... Just tell me what to do... Is Angel the key? _And there was that cherry-tree-painting again on the wall behind him.

And then Buffy saved the world once again, and disappeared.

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><p>Helen and Giles were reunited in the hospital, both for a brief moment speechless and not daring to assume that seeing the other wasn't just another delusive dream or vision. Helen had lost a lot of blood because of the wound on her neck, but was healing fast. Giles had been battered much worse in her eyes, even though he was allowed to leave the hospital the same day. His hands and fingers had been cut, his face was covered in bruises and little cuts as well that were spurring Helen's imagination as to what Angel must have done to him.<p>

Buffy did not return from the mansion, she wasn't at the hospital and she didn't come home. But the world did not end, as Oz pointed out. Giles and Xander found the Acathla sealed again, when they went to the mansion the next day, so they all knew that Buffy must have stopped it. But Giles wondered at what cost. Only a few days later they would learn from Joyce that Buffy had left a note, saying she had to go away. No explanations.

When Buffy still hadn't come back a fortnight later, Willow insisted that they go see the old house again where it all happened. She wasn't sure but thought that the ritual she, Xander, Cordelia and Oz tried to perform again in the hospital might have worked. "I felt something go through me," she said.

Cordelia gave her a disturbed look. "I hope we won't need an exorcist soon."

Though Helen and Giles weren't sure what Willow was hoping to find in the mansion, they agreed to accompany her. They knew she was worried about Buffy. They were too after all. And they guessed that Willow wanted to see the place, maybe hoping that it would help her imagine what had happened to her best friend and why she had left. From the stolen, wordless looks Giles would give her Helen sensed that they were both thinking the same thing, only neither of them would say it. They both found that there weren't that many possible scenarios as to what _could_ have happened, based on all they could put together: First Xander and Giles had seen Angel very close to completing the ritual before they hurriedly left the place, second – even though Willow was a beginner in magicks, Giles did believe that when she said she sensed the ritual working it might have been so and Angel might have been in full possession of his soul again after they left, and finally, based on how long Buffy was away now, clearly without any intention of returning soon, it seemed only too obvious that there had been no happy end for her, no sweet reconciliation with Angel, that her staying away was not the simple average teenage recklessness.

They entered the vast, bleak mansion on the outskirts of Sunnydale. There in the main hall stood the large demon, dormant and sealed with a sword, his stony vacant face almost annoying. "If only he could talk," Giles sighed exasperated. Helen stroke his arm soothingly, before walking over to a smaller room on the left. It was quite dark, the windows were covered with large black draperies, only few thin sunrays would penetrate inside, but Helen could make out the few pieces of dark furniture, something that looked like a dresser, a grand four-poster bed or what was left of it beneath one of the windows, a Victorian chair at the far end, opposite the door... She was about to make some sarcastic remark about the vampires' weakness for grandeur, as her eyes wandered up the wall behind the chair.

Cold sweat spread over her whole body the moment she spotted cherry tree painting on the wall, and she felt as if someone was pulling the ground from underneath her feet, the whole room began to spin around her and she heard voices in her head, some indistinct, but some very clear, those same words echoing – _you should never have come here... you shouldn't be here... you're not supposed to be here_. And then, when Giles' face appeared in her focus as he was walking towards her, looking hurt, tired and still wearing traces of his previous torture, and when he raised his bandaged hand to touch her shoulder, she did regret at last. Regretted ever having set foot in Sunnydale, regretted having ever left, regretted so many other things, a long chain of events and decisions, of things that had happened and those that had not, and dozens of images from her previous nightmares were popping into her mind, and she had to close her eyes again for moment to stop the spinning it was causing her.

"Are you alright?" Giles asked.

His voice calmed her down, at least for a long enough moment to answer: "Ah-yes. Fine," she gave him a quick smile, then avoided his eyes. "It just-ah... smells-ah... oddly in here," she murmured and hurried past him out of the room.

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><p>Four days later Giles woke up in his bed alone. He furrowed his brows when he noticed the other half of the bed being empty. A quick look at his old-fashioned alarm clock on his bedside table told him that it was shortly past seven in the morning. Too early for Helen to be awake, he thought and wondered what she might be up to. There was no sound of the piano playing coming from downstairs, so she wasn't doing that. Perhaps yet another attempt on making breakfast? He thought she had given that up, being no cook at all, but maybe with everything that was going on with Buffy, she wanted to surprise him, or she just couldn't sleep because of a bad dream. He got up, and paused shortly before descending the stairs. Something was... not right. He himself felt strange, rested, yes, but... <em>too<em> rested, if there was such a thing, but that was not it. Something else was disturbing. He looked around the place. It was so quiet, not a sound coming from anywhere. And there was something wrong with the light inside.

"Helen?" He spoke finally when he reached the last step.

There was no reply.

He walked into the kitchen, but it was deserted, as was the bathroom. He felt his heartbeat getting faster. Returning to the living room he drew the curtains apart and stared out for a moment before he realized that the sun was setting, instead of rising. He looked over to his radio clock in the kitchen. _That's impossible_. He had slept over the whole day. On his way towards to front door his eyes caught a glimpse of a small sky-blue envelope, lying on the desk behind the sofa. He frowned again and turned around to fetch it. Yet when he touched it, it suddenly rose from the table and began to float above its surface, changing itself into a shape of a thin mouth, then Helen's curbed voice could be heard emerging from it:

_I fear that_... there he could hear her taking a deep breath and her voice was clearly shaking as it continued, _after I'm gone you won't ever believe how much you mean to me_. After a brief pause she spoke more firmly: _Yet I have to go. I can't take it..._ There was a deep sigh before she tried again: _I cannot take the risks anymore. Take care... I'm sure that Buffy will find her way back one day soon. Don't be too hard on her._

And then the envelope turned into small flames and burned up. Giles kept staring for a long while into the empty space and the spot where it had disappeared, completely numb, before he finally ran his hand through his hair, then leant onto his desk. He noticed that the whiskey bottle was missing. He remembered they were having a few glasses the night before. He had returned from yet another futile search trip for Buffy.

When she disappeared he didn't have the courage to inform the council, but he called Robson who offered his help and now Giles was in contact with a coven somewhere in Wales that was trying to keep an eye on any larger supernatural activities that might lead to a clue where Buffy landed. So far however they weren't leading anywhere near Buffy. One call seemed to be caused by the experiments of a research lab and its particle accelerator based not far from LA, the last one brought Giles to a centennial meeting of the Loose-Skinned demons in Seattle. But no sign of Buffy, so that when he returned the evening before and Helen poured him a drink, he thought he could really do with it. But he still wondered how much he had drunk to sleep this long, especially when he didn't recall being _that_ drunk. And then a bad notion overcame him and he went to the coffee table where the two whiskey glasses laid. One was almost empty and the other was full. But what caught his eyes was the short reflection of light from some small object on the floor and as he came closer and picked it up, he realized it was a broken tiny glass phial with some wizarding runes on it. He didn't need to understand them, it still took him only a second to grasp what happened. And only now he was finally feeling something. Fury. Rage. Anger. Disappointment, desperation and at last – resignation.

On the next day Willow, Xander and Cordelia came to see him, curious to learn what he had found out on his last trip.

When Willow asked: "Where's Helen?", he, looking very much his old, composed, stoic self, would reply dryly:

"She's gone."

He wasn't surprised to observe from their faces that only Willow seemed to have understood the exact meaning of those words. Because while Xander and Cordelia merely raised their brows, Xander a little confused, Cordelia not really caring, Willow's face immediately showed concern and fearing for the worse.

"W-what do you mean?"

Giles tilted his head, getting uncomfortable now, and sensing the same emotional spiral from the previous night rising in him, he had hard time to keep down the bitterness, even anger in his voice: "She-uh... took... all her things and left some time yesterday." Now Xander and Cordelia were clearly feeling as uncomfortable as he was a moment ago. Willow stared at him, without knowing what to say. "She's not coming back," he added and turned away to disappear in the kitchen under the pretext of getting some refreshments. He didn't tell them about Helen's note. He didn't say that she sneaked out while he was sleeping. He didn't tell them that she felt she had to drug him to be able to leave. He didn't tell them that he nearly lost all his pride this morning when he picked the phone and almost dialed the airport to ask whether there had been a passenger with her name passing the gates and where she was flying to.

* * *

><p>The summer days were passing slowly. He kept asking himself "Why?" It was the first question he would form every morning during the following weeks, and it was also the last word that would cross his mind when he'd close his eyes every night. Despite his anger he knew, he felt that she hadn't <em>forgotten<em> him, nor had she left him simply to be with someone else. He was just angry that she didn't tell him, that she hadn't talked to him, that she made the choice for both of them.

In her note she didn't say _I'll be back one day_. No, she spoke of Buffy instead. _Buffy will be back one day... _As if Buffy could replace her. As if Buffy could play the role in his life _she_ did. As if Buffy could patch up the hole in his chest _she_ left behind.

The worst thing was that he didn't know what to do. He smiled bitterly into his whiskey glass one evening, sitting on the sofa, an open book laid untouched in front of him. For once the world wasn't ending and no demons were around, and yet he felt clueless, utterly at a loss, stumped. He almost wished that he had an apocalypse at his hands that would keep him busy, that would give him a sense, or at least a clear direction of what to do. But every time his string of thoughts led down that path, the other pain hit him – _Buffy _wasn't there to fight his demons.

Should he forget her - Helen? Should he try to erase her from his memory? Completely? To push out every single recollection he had of her? Try to pretend that meeting her, that that day in October almost two years ago, when she walked into his library and nervously kept scrunching her scarf, happened in some other universe? But then he would begin to think about it too much, wondering after a few more glasses of whiskey, whether that universe was still playing out somewhere, or whether in yet another parallel world they still were together. And that hurt. Just as much as thinking whether it was all just a dream (God knows they had shared a lot that was fantastic, surreal enough to doubt even now that it ever happened.)

Later when he thought of the two of them, his slayer and his lover, he would ponder and acknowledge at last, that Buffy, wherever she was, would be alright, would always land on her feet, he knew that. Strangely, he didn't feel so sure about Helen. She had this ambiguity about her. On one hand she often gave the impression of being hopelessly incapable of taking care of herself, of living in this world, on the other hand there was the spirit of a boundless, restless independence about her. Once more she has given in to the coward inside her by leaving him the way she did, but he also knew that she could be very strong when she wanted to. He tried to imagine what she was doing, where she was, how she was, but every time he found it impossible, for somehow he couldn't picture her elsewhere other than here, in his apartment or in his library, in his life, the thought of her being not here was just absurd. And then he would get angry with himself, telling to himself that she surely has forgotten all about him by now, reprimanding himself for spending any more thoughts on her.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Right. Not the best end, and I hope it wasn't too pathetic. They're going their separate ways – for now. To find out where Helen went and what she did there, watch out for a new story :)<em>

_As always – if you have a spare minute, do leave a review. _

_Thank you for reading this far! Hopefully, the update won't take as long this time ;)_


	44. Chapter 44

_AN: This is no new chapter – as I wrote in the last update – I'm posting the sequel as a new entry – "The Third Man Part II" – that title is hideous, but I won't change it anymore. It's getting very long, so I'm about to make it into a series. I'm not entirely sure if it's the right idea, so let me know if you think otherwise._

_Thank you for following, hopefully you'll enjoy the instalment._


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